


The Temptation of Anduin Wrynn

by silriven



Series: The Eastern Kingdoms Cycle [1]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: Ableism, Ableist Language, Abuse under religious institutions, Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Amputation, Animal Death, Attempted Suicide, Body Horror, Cannabis, Canon-Typical Violence, Chronic Pain, Depression, Disturbing Nightmares, Eventual Catharsis, Found Family, Genn is an antagonist in this one I'm sorry, Homophobia, Hunting, I think I accidentally wrote slow burn, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Religious Intolerence, Sex, Trans Male Character, Warcraft Politics, World of War-Against-Heteronormativity-Craft, animal birth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:21:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 244,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24025753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silriven/pseuds/silriven
Summary: In the twilight of N'zoth's quieting whispers, the High King of the Alliance and the son of Neltharion the Earth-Warder manage to steal brief moments of comfort in each other's company.  When their relationship is dragged into the unforgiving eye of the public, it sparks a series of events that threaten to rend the Great Alliance apart.
Relationships: Wrathion/Anduin Wrynn
Series: The Eastern Kingdoms Cycle [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1975819
Comments: 239
Kudos: 312





	1. All is Quiet in Kalimdor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This canon divergence starts after the events of World of Warcraft Patch 8.3: Visions of N'zoth and before the release of the Shadows Rising novel.

Mother hear this proposition right  
Grant me freedom to enjoy this night  
And I'll return to you at break of light  
For the wanting comes in waves

\- The Decemberists

* * *

In the gray light of the pre-dawn hours, Silithus writhed beneath the twin glows from the hellish red radiance of the dark blade of Sargeras. The calm, blue yellow emissions from the veins of fresh azerite spread like a spiderweb across the dark desert sand. Wrathion, the Black Prince, the uncorrupted son of Deathwing the Destroyer, lowered the flap of his tent, fastening it at the base behind him. He was dressed for travel, donning a long dust-scarred coat with pant legs tucked into high, pointed boots to keep out the sand and dirt. His long dark hair was wrapped in the folds of a black turban with maroon and gold ornaments. A small knapsack was slung over his shoulders and his sword, Succession, was neatly fastened at one hip, where a long red and gold embroidered sash crossed his waist. He made his way over the crest of the sand dune, his back turned to the denser part of the encampment.

A familiar form sat on the brow of the hill, looking directly down over the wide, flat stretch of desert that stood between the edge of the encampment and the neighboring region of Tanaris. The figure's silhouette was unmistakable, with a crown of thick antlers adorned with feathers, leather tassels, and bones. Wrathion climbed, following a fresh set of footprints that looked like giant hooves, his leathers rustling inaudibly.

"Ebyssian," Wrathion greeted his brother.

"Wrathion," the other black dragon returned.

Wrathion leaned over, bowing his head between the sharp fingers of antlers, and Ebyssian raised his own to meet him. They touched foreheads, briefly, Wrathion raising one hand to brush the side of Ebyssian's jaw and Ebyssian raising a giant hand to briefly cover Wrathion's armored elbow. It was a gesture that dragons made when greeting family and close friends. They had come to find some comfort in expressing it through their mortal forms, which they found themselves in for the majority of their time in Silithus. There weren't very many places for a dragon's massive body to comfortably roost in the volatile desert or amongst the small Cenarion Circle tents. After having spent so much time alone, they both seemed to share an unspoken appreciation for the occasional platonic touch from a family member.

"Heading out?" Ebyssian asked as Wrathion settled down next to him on the fringed wool blanket he had spread out on top of the gritty sand.

"Yes, I am," Wrathion replied.

Ebyssian extended a hand that held a delicate looking wood pipe. Wrathion's nostrils flared at the familiar, thick scent.

"No, thank you," he said, holding one gloved palm up. "I'm afraid it has quite the opposite effect on my biology as it does yours."

A low, rumbling chuckle resonated in Ebyssian's throat as he returned the pipe to his own mouth. The older dragon summoned a tiny flame on the tip of a finger which he then used to smolder the blackened herbs packed inside the bowl. He inhaled, holding the smoke in his lungs for a minute, before letting out a small cloud into the valley before them.

It was quite a sight to behold. In the middle of the desert wasteland, a patch of green sprawled from the base of a moonwell that had been erected in what was, months before, a patch of dry, rocky soil. White wildflowers sprinkled the grass in a spiral pattern, with the moonwell at the center of the spokes. Two druids, a Tauren and a Night Elf, were sitting together at the edge of the pool, arms stretched overhead as they recited some kind of prayer that rippled over the grass like wind in waves.

"How long will you be gone?" Ebyssian asked.

Wrathion crossed his outstretched ankles over the blanket before him, studying the curled tips of his boots. "About three days travel north to Orgrimmar, then another two day's journey overseas to Stormwind from Theramore."

Wrathion paused a moment to consider his words before saying, "I expect to spend at least a couple of days in the Alliance capitol to rest before I return."

Ebyssian nodded. "Good, good, do not overexert yourself. It's a great burden that you've agreed to take on for the Speaker, relaying his reports to both factions."

Wrathion nodded, ignoring the heat that had spread unbidden across his face, hidden in the dark morning dawn. "It is my pleasure. I feel...somewhat useless, given the state of my own broken ties to this earth."

It was a familiar conversation, one they found themselves having frequently, a two dragon dialogue of alternating hopes and frustrations. The duty of the Black Dragonflight was to guard the earth itself, to enrich the soil and strengthen its roots. It was their work that would lay the foundation for the druids and shamans of Azeroth to perform their wild magic and, eventually, shape the very terrain of Silithus to push the sword from its wound. Rather, this was what Magni Bronzebeard, The Speaker and Herald for Azeroth, hoped. But the two surviving members of the Black Dragonflight were both horribly out of tune with the natural order of things and struggled to channel the energies that were once wielded by their forefathers. Wrathion spent countless hours in walking meditation and sword practice, attempting to meter his natural rhythm to the drumming of magma far beneath the chaotic melodies chiming from the loose streams of azerite. He would strain under the push and pull until sweat caused his clothes to stick to his skin from the effort and his limbs trembled as they carried his mortal body back home to his tent. Ebyssian had his own way of attempting to reach the earth elements, one that involved rituals of sage, sacrifice, and prayer from the Highmountain Tribe that Wrathion had tried but failed to commune through. And so they both worked, both together and alone, to find some way to heal the wound in Silithus.

The miracle of the green field below was a testament to some small success.

"We will get there, in time," Ebyssian stated.

Wrathion sighed. "Yes, indeed, I have no doubt, but perhaps not before my hair and your fur have both gone gray."

Ebyssian snorted and took another toke from the pipe. "You are barely older than a whelp, what right have you to complain of age?"

"I am a bit older than that, I think," Wrathion said wryly.

A low draconic noise rumbled in Ebyssian's Tauren throat. "Just wait until you have a few more decades under that fancy belt of yours."

The black dragon exhaled another large cloud of musky smoke. Wrathion felt a small tingle run through his scalp as he inhaled.

"Ebyssian," he said, suddenly. "I think I've changed my mind. May I take some of your pipeweed with me, for the journey?"

"Of course," Ebyssian sounded somewhat perplexed as he reached into his satchel, handing Wrathion a small leather pouch decorated with delicate blue and white beads. "Here, you can have all of this, I have plenty more back in my tent. I don't have a spare pipe, though."

"I'm sure one won't be difficult to procure somewhere along the way," Wrathion said as he tucked the pouch into his bag.

"Why the change of heart?"

Wrathion placed one ornate, gloved hand over his heart, tilting his head back so that the loose tails of his turban wrap spilled down over the scales decorating the back of his traveling coat. "The scent will remind me of you, dear brother, and bring warm memories of your presence to keep me company on my lonely journey."

Ebyssian roared with laughter and slapped Wrathion on the shoulder with enough force to send the Black Prince's wiry mortal form rocking sideways. "Get out of here. You'll need to reach Tanaris early to catch a fast caravan north."

Wrathion rocked back and used the forward momentum to propel himself up onto his feet. "Indeed. Farewell, brother. May Magni's speeches be short and the Titan's blood flow gently beneath your hooves."

"May the roads be kind, brother. Find your way safely home."

Wrathion raised a hand back in Ebyssian's direction as he began his descent of the sand dunes, feeling his pulse rise and a powerful heat quicken in his gut as his thoughts turned towards his destination.

* * *

The pristine, white marble halls of Stormwind Keep rang with the sound of her High King's plate boots clicking against the tile as he made his way from the War Room, rifling through a stack of papers in his gauntleted hands. The sky shone bright and blue, casting warm shadows from the pillars that lined the space between the walkway and the garden where the former Queen Tiffin was buried. He was half reading, half listening to Genn Greymane, King of Gilneas, speaking in an urgent tone at his armored elbow.

"I implore you, Your Majesty, you must not give in to Bloodhoof's demands."

" _Awaihilo_ Bloodhoof is not making demands," High King Anduin Llane Wrynn responded, gray-blue eyes still focused on the Westfall mineral inventory sheets before him. "He is one voice of several on the Horde Council, and they, like the Alliance, are making peacetime requests, not demands."

"That _Council_ ," Genn almost spat out the word. "Is a sham. The Horde has been unable to unify for years. Do they really expect us to believe that those savages will suddenly be obedient to a handful of minor leaders who individually were too weak to be Warchief, while still rubbing elbows with those cancerous, unholy _deaders_ \--"

Anduin stopped in his tracks, turning a cool gaze towards the Gilnean King. With his full, undivided attention now on the older man, he could see that Greymane had left the meeting in a far more enraged state of mind than he had initially gauged. Genn's eyes were red-rimmed and shining with something that could have been tears, but Anduin knew far better as a sign of feral rage barely held back by a hair's breadth of a trigger.

"King Greymane," Anduin said, his voice gentle but firm. "Baine is asking for a more concentrated, politically-conscious collaboration between the druids of the Alliance and the Horde. I expect Thrall will follow up with a similar request if this goes through and works to each faction's advantage. There's historically been stronger cross-factional relations between druids than shamans."

"Gilnean druids do not associate with the Horde," Genn retorted.

Anduin hesitated, mulling over a response to this that wouldn't end in a larger fight about the complications of druidic loyalty.

"Genn, please," he began, his tone now so soft he might have been speaking out of turn in church. To his relief, the other man's posture was put at ease by this deferential plea from the High King. "The Horde has decided to welcome back all Forsaken who were not loyal to Sylvanas. It is their right to make that decision autonomously. I do not see what good it will do to take a hard anti-Forsaken stance given what we... _I_...know about Forsaken politics and temperament. You were by my side as we watched the Banshee Queen murder her own people for the crime of daring to hope for a future with their old families. And you know that I commune frequently with Alonsus Faol when I visit the Netherlight Temple. Refusing further peace negotiations can only bring resentment and worse, potentially reignite a fifth war."

And he so badly wanted peace. The inventory tallies as they were written in his hands would not get them safely through a second War of the Thorns.

Genn looked away from the tree he had been glaring at. "This is not the end of the conversation. If you had read the literature I left on your desk..."

"The Scarlet Crusade propaganda?" Anduin couldn't keep the bite from his voice. "From the same cloister of authors who claim that I seduced the Banshee Queen and am regularly seeking comfort in warming her loins?"

"The Scarlet Brotherhood cannot take responsibility for every dime novel some fanatic publishes under their name," Genn groused with a sweep of his hand. "There are many respectable authors who have written competently and sanely about the Forsaken, I suggest you direct your bookish nose in their direction sometime."

Anduin remained silent, and Genn's brow quirked. "Truth be told, I'm sure the rumor that you are exploring any woman's loins came as something of a relief to most of the kingdom."

Anduin's face flushed and he turned away, resuming his walk. "This conversation is over."

"Anduin." This time it was Genn's voice that came forth gently in an attempt to find compromise. "Come now, do not be a child. Did I speak a lie?"

Anduin said nothing. Genn's footsteps caught up with him.

"You have not yet signed the decree that Stormwind Keep will host a summer solstice ball," Genn pressed. "The window is now tight for preparations, but there is still time..."

"Preparations?" Anduin waved the stack of papers in the direction of Greymane's face. "Genn, you cannot be serious. We'll be lucky if Westfall can plant and harvest enough to get her families through next winter, how can you and the House of Nobles still be considering..."

"The House of Nobles has more on their plate than cold economic calculations," Genn retorted, rapping the stack with his knuckle. "Your people are tired, their sons and daughters have returned broken and exhausted from war, the least you could do is throw a party to put a smile on some faces."

"Yes I'm sure the nobility sweating profusely in the Keep's ballroom during the longest day of summer while they stuff their faces with decadent food and cake as children in Westfall break their backs planting their parents’ grain is just the medicine the Alliance needs to recover from the Fourth War."

Anduin realized he was now yelling and an ache had risen in his lower spine. He took a moment to draw a calm breath and let a few words of quiet prayer turn over in his mind. Genn's shoulderspan seemed to grow a fraction wider as he fumed and studied the younger king with shadow-lined eyes.

"You've spent almost every waking day of your reign either in mourning or consumed with defeating the Burning Legion and compromising with the Horde," Genn reasoned. "Stormwind needs a strong compassionate leader, yes, but it would earn you much goodwill amongst the nobility if they could see their handsome, young king treating their daughters to a night of music and dancing..."

"You know I can't dance," Anduin retorted.

"Between your title and your golden hair, I can assure you that there isn't an unwed noblewoman in this kingdom who wouldn't be delighted for the opportunity to step and twirl around your crippled leg."

"Oh, what a relief." Anduin could not help but roll his eyes for what might have been the first time since his coronation. "Genn, can we please have this conversation another time? I'm on my way to speak with servants about going through our stores and seeing what we can spare to donate to the Church's pantry, then I must prepare to receive Magni's emissary."

"That _dragon_." This time, Genn did spit, over the railing and into the garden. "I don't know why he even bothers, the news is always the same. Let me save you some time, Your Majesty..."

Genn held up a gloved hand and began ticking off items by curling his fingers. "The Cenarion Circle is still fumbling around planting daisies in dead sand, azerite continues to pour in radioactive rivers from the earth, the two official members of the Black Dragonflight cannot muster a single earthen hiccup between them, and Sargeras' shadow looms over the druidic commune hosting this circus."

"Magni is a dear friend," Anduin said. "You want to speak of maintaining ties of friendship? We could do for worse friends than the druids of the Cenarion Circle and the one who speaks for Azeroth herself."

Anduin ignored the toxic look in Genn's eyes as he swept into a formal, courtly bow. "I must take my leave, King Greymane. I wish you a pleasant evening."

Genn shook his head at the sight of Anduin rising and turning on one heel.

"They're never going to get that damned sword out, you know," the sound of Greymane's voice echoing down the corridor was lost in the clatter of Anduin's retreating footsteps.

* * *

The layers of pageantry involved in making a business visit to Stormwind Keep were not something that the Black Prince felt he would ever become used to. The exhaustion from the journey did nothing to help his patience, but even so, to ascend the stone steps that bordered Varian Wrynn's fountain required an invasive inspection of both his person and the formal letter from Magni Bronzebeard, all while the guards pretended not to notice the obvious dragon-ness to Wrathion's mortal form. This would have taken a herculean level of control over his temper on the best of days, nevermind the sticky end of a hot summer one filled with lonely walking and dusty riding. One would think that the slight hint of scales in carefully chosen places where the skin stretched just so over bone and the smoky, burning red eyes would have removed all question as to who he was and the purpose of his visit. Wrathion often wondered if it would be quicker to simply drop down from the setting sunset sky in his true form, the process expedited just to get his heavy claws off of the artfully tended lawn. The temptation was especially strong under the last few rays of the summer day's heat.

Once inside, there was the tedious wait to deal with as a chain of servants relayed the news of his arrival upstairs, followed by a second wait for the response to travel back. While this happened, Wrathion sat on an uncomfortable blue and gold cushioned bench in the empty throne room, solving and un-solving a strange gnomish pocket puzzle he had picked up at a farmer's market booth he had passed by in Elwynn Forest earlier that day.

The High King had retreated from the heat for the day and was receiving visitors from the cool comfort of his parlor. The Black Prince had attempted to time his visit just so that he would be the last of the day to command the king's attention. He knew that his visit would not be refused, even at this late post-dinner hour. Once permission had been given to bring him before King Wrynn, there was then the slow walk through the winding, muggy corridors to endure. This was orchestrated by some unlucky servant who was equally tired and short of temper at the end of a long day of work.

All frustration melted away, though, at the sight of High King Anduin Wrynn standing in his parlor, dressed in a narrow gray vest over a crisp, white button-down shirt. The sleeves were rolled up to the elbows in an attempt to alleviate the heat while still remaining presentable. His head was bent over his desk as he studied some sort of official paperwork, shoulder-length blond hair tied back in its usual practical ponytail. The fair wisps at the nape of his neck were slightly damp with human sweat that Wrathion could smell even before he crossed the parlor threshold. All of the windows were open, bringing in the coming promise of relief in the cooling evening air, the warm summer breeze making the candles flicker.

The servant observed sharply as she carried out her duty to formally announce the visitor. Wrathion played his part by folding one arm over his waist and bending forward in a deep, deferential bow to the King of Stormwind.

"Prince Wrathion of the Black Dragonflight, Emissary of the Speaker, welcome," Anduin Wrynn said.

"Thank you for receiving me at this late hour, Your Majesty," Wrathion replied, eyes respectfully aimed at the floor under the King's leather boots. "I bring urgent news of a sensitive nature from Magni Bronzebeard."

"Very well," Anduin's response came fluid and easy, an actor calm and collected on stage in a play, even as Wrathion's pulse quickened in his throat. "Thank you very much, Neera, please leave us to talk in private."

The servant made a formal exit, shutting the heavy doors to the parlor behind her.

"Your Majesty will be delighted to hear of the progress we are making in Silithus," Wrathion began, straightening at the waist as he unfurled the roll of documents that made up Magni's official report. "The Cenarion Circle have achieved some success in raising a diversity of plant life in the first patch of grass and we have brought you some samples of the budding Peacebloom that has taken root--"

Anduin crossed the distance between them and knocked the papers away. One hand fell heavy on Wrathion's shoulder, the other hand's fingers slipped into the folds of the turban behind Wrathion's head. He pulled their bodies together as he pressed his mouth up to the dragon's for a long, deep kiss. Wrathion felt his mortal knees weaken as he was overwhelmed by the sudden closeness of Anduin's scent and the familiar heat from his body. He tried to set the papers down on the nearest horizontal surface but they tumbled and scattered from his distracted fingers as the king continued to grip his body closer, holding his head in place with one hand while the other traveled down to explore the fabric around his waist. Wrathion let his own hands grip the king's narrow hips as he was yanked towards the desk and hoisted on top, Anduin pinning him down against the wood as his ravenous lips continued to work. He could feel the king thrust into his thigh, something stiff pressing through the seam of his pants.

"You're late," Anduin growled.

"Ship was delayed," Wrathion responded, his breaths coming short. He was damp between his legs, a persistent spot that had been growing since he had stepped foot in the Keep. "Couldn't dock for hours. Your esteemed navy's discipline is slipping."

Anduin's hands worked the buttons of his coat open and threw the collar wide. The silver scaled shoulder pads were sent askew, knocking over a golden letter holder.

"Leave it," the king murmured into Wrathion's mouth when the dragon instinctively reached over to straighten it.

"As Your Majesty commands."

The king ground against the dragon's thigh and knee as his hands worked to undo the sash over Wrathion's pants. The dragon smirked and leaned in to tease Anduin's ear with his tongue and teeth as he felt the fingers pluck and slip over the knot.

"Light, damn it, Wrathion, why must you wear so many infernal layers?"

"Oh, hush, Your Majesty, you seem to like this belt well enough when it's binding your wrists to the royal bedpost."

Wrathion bucked his hips, knocking Anduin's hands away to deftly undo the knot himself, tossing the red and gold garment aside with an easy flick of his wrist. His red eyes narrowed as he approached, seizing Anduin's wrists and pinning them above his head as he pressed the king's back flat up against the wall. Wrathion's teeth came down to sink around an old scar in the king's soft neck. Anduin gasped and writhed in frustration beneath him as Wrathion bit hard enough to draw blood, sucking relentlessly to mark the monarch as his own with a bruise.

"So foolish to leave yourself alone and at the mercy of the Black Dragonflight," Wrathion murmured into Anduin's ear, lust rippling between his legs as he felt Anduin's breath then body hitch in succession, either unable or unwilling to escape the sensation.

"I've had a long day and am ready for both the Light and the Son of Deathwing to take me."

Wrathion laughed. "Oh, my dear, may the Light forgive us both for what we are about to do."

* * *

The sun had completely set. The king's bedchamber was enveloped in the dark cover of nightfall. A few candles kept the room from total shadow. Wrathion was entangled in both crisp, rich linen bedsheets and Anduin's sprawling limbs embracing him from behind. He lay listening to the sound of the other man's labored breathing and relishing the feeling of his very human heart pounding in his breast pressed up against his back.

"I've missed you," Wrathion heard in his ear as he felt Anduin's hand tighten its hold around his waist. Wrathion laid his own on top, entwining their fingers.

"And I have you," he responded in kind, his own twin draconic hearts shifting to beat in time with his partner's. He lay with his head resting in the crook of Anduin's arm, the heat of the king's breath on the back of his neck. The sound began to deepen and then slow. Smiling, Wrathion rolled over, turning to tilt his head into the hand that was closest to the headboard and propped on an elbow.

"Now I get to indulge in the simple pleasure of watching you fall asleep," he teased.

One gray blue eye cracked open, looking up in annoyance. "You've only just arrived, I'm not that poor of a host."

"You say as much every time," Wrathion replied.

Anduin huffed and made a show of lifting his head up, shifting his weight to be situated higher on the pillows. Even so, Wrathion could see the exhaustion setting into his heavy-lidded eyes.

"How was your journey?" Anduin asked, one hand coming up to stroke the side of Wrathion's face.

The Black Prince leaned into the petting, relishing the undivided attention. "Hot, long. Otherwise unremarkable. I'm sure you don't need to hear the nuances of your own kingdom described to you in excruciating detail."

Anduin laughed. "So much for small talk. Come, now, I know there must have been some puzzle or other that you've been mulling over to keep your mind occupied over the past few days."

Wrathion smirked, tilting his head so that Anduin's fingers traveled into his hairline. "Well, Your Majesty, since you asked. I've been occupied with the most intriguing question of what happens to a particle of light when it comes beneath an instrument of measure. There is a gnomish theory that the mere act of observation can change the properties of such small matter, which makes assessing its composition most difficult, as you can imagine..."

The Black Prince continued and it didn't take long for the weight of Anduin's hand on his head to slacken, followed by the sound of heavy, even breathing. Wrathion laughed quietly to himself as he looked up to the sight of the king's slack face, handsome and free of tension as it lay in the comfort of soft pillows. He stroked a strand of the king's hair between two clawed fingers, watching the similarly colored eyelashes flutter in sleep. A rumble rose in Wrathion's throat as he curled against Anduin's body, the sleeping man's arms shifting their embrace in a half-conscious doze.

Dragons were said to have treasure hoards, but Wrathion did not yet have a home in which to keep one, nor many possessions to store. His nature had been distinctly nomadic since the day of his chaotic birth and he was not in the habit of obsessing over trinkets. Still, he imagined that the feeling from being in possession of such wealth would pale in comparison to the all-consuming feeling of pride he felt in entangling his limbs with a sleeping Anduin Wrynn.

* * *

Wrathion awoke to an annoying beam of persistent sunlight dappling across his face. The brightness somehow did not seem to abate even when he groaned and turned his face into the shade of a pillow. Summers in Stormwind were relentless compared to the dusky days of Silithus. He breathed in the scent of Anduin's body in the pillowcase and relished the sensation of rich sheets wrapped around his bare skin. Countless nights curled up on a blanket over sand had made him more appreciative to the comforts of even the humblest of beds and Anduin's bed was not modest. Wrathion realized it had been a rare night of uninterrupted sleep, no nightmares of fel-rotting demons or the sky splitting open over Northrend had roused him. He felt both lucid and content. Well-rested, as mortals liked to say.

The sound of familiar, labored breathing, reached his ears, not urgently so. Sweeping his arm, he found the rest of the mattress expectedly empty. Lifting his head, he squinted and quietly crept to the end of the bed, peering over the ornately carved oak footboard. Anduin was on the floor in his underclothes and a simple sleep shirt, working his way through a series of push-ups on his two hands and one foot. His hair had returned to a messy ponytail and his face was red and huffing from the effort. Wrathion draped himself across the end of the bed, folding his arms and tipping his chin as he waited for the king to notice that he was being watched.

"Enjoying yourself?" Anduin remarked, unperturbed, around his gasps when he lowered himself to rest on his chest.

"Come back to bed," Wrathion said, reaching over the foot of the bedframe.

Anduin shook his head. "No, I should really start making myself look presentable, I'm scheduled to be at the Cathedral of Light in a couple of hours."

"It's Sunday," Wrathion noted. "Can the High King not even enjoy a single day of rest?"

"Unfortunately, no," Anduin said. "And I usually attend service on Sundays, at any rate."

Wrathion couldn't help but wrinkle his nose, which Anduin pretended not to notice.

The king reached for a pair of crutches he had lying nearby and hoisted himself up, disappearing into the bathroom. The sound of pipes coming to life and running water soon followed. Wrathion rolled out of bed and trailed after him like a cat. He stood at a distance, leaning against the doorframe as he observed. Anduin was sitting on the floor by the large granite bathtub that was filling with water, emitting soft clouds of hot steam, back to the door and in the process of removing his shirt. The bathroom had a few tall, high windows that were covered with semi-transparent veil curtains, just enough to remain private while still letting the daylight in to fill the room.

"Do you need something?" Anduin asked as the fabric slipped from his head, leaving his already scruffy bed head tousled even more than it had been when he'd first woken up. The hairband was also gone and the long blond hair fell freely around his shoulders.

"Only you," Wrathion said with a playful tilt to his voice.

This prompted a short, albeit forced laugh. Anduin removed his underclothes, then pulled himself into the bath, disappearing for a moment under the warm, slightly cloudy water from which wafted a faint perfume of amber.

"I only get so many opportunities to see you completely undressed," Wrathion said, making his way over to the basin, where Anduin had resurfaced and was lathering soap in a washcloth. "I can't help but indulge."

"You must be starved for indulgences, then," Anduin quipped back.

Wrathion held out his hand. After a moment's hesitation, Anduin handed the suds-soaked cloth over and folded his arms over his single knee, leaning forward. Wrathion knelt by the side of the bath and began to rub the cloth over the king's wide back. A groan of pleasure met Wrathion's ears and he felt some small amount of tension abate from the knotted muscle underneath his hands.

"I have a devious plan to do this again and again until you believe my intentions are sincere," Wrathion teased.

Anduin's face was turning red, whether it was from the bath steam or from the release of tension or from shame. Wrathion worked the cloth over Anduin's shoulders, taking care not to irritate the thick veins of old scar tissue that covered his fair skin. The conflict in Pandaria had extracted a substantial toll on the former prince's body, most of which Wrathion had seen when the young priest was still raw and healing. This was years ago when they first became acquainted with each other, a deep friendship blossoming between them on the misty mountainside nestled to the west of the Valley of the Four Winds

"It will be worth the wait," the Black Prince said as his hands moved from back to front, Anduin dropping his arms to let the washcloth travel over his chest. "For you to finally realize how much I treasure every part of your body."

This, at last, caused a small gleam to come to Anduin's eyes, if not quite a smile, and the man reached out to take Wrathion's free hand and pull it in close against the side of his cheek.

"By the Light, do you ever hear yourself when you speak?" Anduin asked, turning to press his lips to the dragon's palm.

"Always," Wrathion said, leaning over to claim a firmer kiss from the king's mouth. "Who else do you think I have to talk to when you're not around?"

"The entirety of Blacktalon isn't enough?" Anduin asked as he reached for a glass bottle of shampoo.

"Not nearly enough, my dear king," Wrathion replied, swapping the washcloth in his hand for the bottle in Anduin's. "You underestimate the size of a dragon's ego."

Anduin continued to scrub his lower body while Wrathion worked a thumb-sized amount of shampoo into his fair, golden hair. The dragon enjoyed the small noises of pleasure that slipped from Anduin's throat as his clawed fingertips massaged the man's scalp, sending what could have only been tingling sensations from his head and neck down his entire body.

"My king, you sound as if you haven't had anyone touch you in weeks," Wrathion made an effort to sound somewhat shocked.

"Not since you were last here," Anduin replied, his voice cool. "So, then, I suppose it has been weeks."

"Do you not have an army of servants who can do this for you?"

"Yes," Anduin said, his voice bending at the insinuation that he would ever ask anyone in the Keep to help him bathe. "But, I enjoy my privacy."

Wrathion combed out the tangles with care until Anduin's hair hung clean and slick down the back of his neck. Picking up a small pitcher sitting by the side, Wrathion scooped up some bathwater and poured it over the king's head, holding his other hand at the man's brow to prevent stray drops from running into his eyes as he rinsed the remaining suds out. Anduin, having finished cleaning the rest of his body, pushed himself up to sit on the edge of the basin. He let Wrathion take the waiting towel and rub it through his hair until most of the moisture was out, leaving it soft and lightly damp on his shoulders. Anduin wrapped the towel around his waist and picked up the crutches again. Wrathion followed him back into the bedroom.

The king sat at the edge of his bed and retrieved his prosthetic leg from a long box on the floor next to his nightstand. He rolled a rubber sock over what remained of his right thigh, pressing out the air bubbles, and slipped the leg's socket on over it. Wrathion made his way back onto the bed as well and resumed his lounging position down the length of it, observing Anduin from his chin propped up on one hand.

"Your leg looks a bit different from the last time I was here," he noted.

"Yes, it is," Anduin said, standing up. He held down a small button on the side of the socket and began to use his weight to pump the air out, creating a vacuum seal between his limb and the synthetic material. "The Mechagnomes have been sharing their wealth of prosthesis technology with the rest of the Alliance's medical engineers.

"I've been trying to keep their attention on the recently wounded soldiers who need their help far more than me, but," Anduin shrugged. "Gossip travels. Once news of my condition reached Prince Erazmin's ears, he personally insisted on sending someone to take a look and give me an upgrade as a thank you gift for our help on Mechagon and for welcoming them into the Alliance. There was no way I could refuse without insulting the Alliance's newest allies."

After taking a moment to test his weight and comfort, the king finally latched the socket shut and walked on two feet to the large set of closet doors on the opposite side of the room. His gait did seem smoother to Wrathion's eye, but it could also have been that the king wasn't burdened by excessive bone pain that morning.

"What duties pull the High King of Stormwind from his bedchamber on this holy day?" Wrathion asked.

"A community baptism," Anduin explained as he opened the closet, revealing a modest cluster of tailored shirts. "We've had so few births this year, between the war and the rise in infant mortality, a personal blessing from the king to increase parent's morale is the very least I can do. I've also arranged for every parent to receive a wooden box with supplies, blankets, some food and clothing and such. The crate can also double as a bed, so that at least every newborn will have somewhere to sleep."

"You should also include small flasks of strong dwarven liquor," Wrathion suggested. "For the parents. I hear you humans are absolute terrors during your first year of life."

"That will be you and Ebyssian soon, correct?" Anduin inquired as he selected a simple white shirt with golden laurels embroidered at the collar and sleeves.

"Certainly not, newborn dragons are quite self sufficient," Wrathion said, indignant, as he watched the scars on the king's back disappear underneath the fine linen. "But no, I can't say how close we are to bringing more uncorrupted children into our flight. We're making slow progress in resuscitating the fossilized eggs...but, our attention is divided. With healing the incomprehensible wound in the earth and everything."

Anduin retrieved a pair of custom tailored black dress pants from the bureau and returned to the bed to put them on. The right pant leg had a delicate zipper all but hidden in the custom seam which the king shut over the prosthesis. Once finished, he let his hand rest on the small of Wrathion's back, rubbing his thumb pad in circles over the dragon's skin as he listened.

"This work in Silithus is commanding all of our attention," Wrathion said, staring at the pattern embroidered into Anduin's rumpled quilt as he ran his claws through his hair. "Magni believes the sword can, and must, be completely removed but Ebyssian and I are beginning to have...doubts."

"I'd think that Magni would know enough to trust the instincts of two earth-affiliated dragons," Anduin noted.

"Yes but the problem is Ebyssian and I do not yet trust ourselves," Wrathion folded his arms and turned his head to rest his cheek on his forearms. A deep rumble of pleasure began to reverberate in his chest as Anduin took this as an invitation to begin running his fingertips over the dragon's scalp.

"Have you reached a decision on who will be the next Aspect?" Anduin asked.

"No," Wrathion growled. "We go back and forth. Some days, Ebyssian's age and wisdom makes the most sense. Other days, it's my insurmountable intelligence and charm."

Anduin laughed. Wrathion smirked and peeked up at him out of the corner of one smoking red eye. "Most days, if I'm being completely honest."

"I'm sure you are," Anduin's face grew serious for a moment. He hesitated, before asking. "...will you still be here when I return?"

Wrathion made a small humming noise and lowered his eyelids. "I think the King of Stormwind will be most unsettled to hear the news that there is a scoundrel of a Black Dragon who plans to linger in the walls of his precious city for at least a couple of days."

The light from the smile that broke over Anduin's face made Wrathion's stomach roil. The king fell sideways on top of him, crushing him in a ferocious embrace. The dragon choked on his next breath in surprise.

"Gods, I always forget you've been training to wear that hideous armor," he groaned. "What happened to that slender, delicate priest I used to know?"

"He had to grow up and lead his father's armies into battle," Anduin said before laying his lips on Wrathion's temple. "I'll send up for some breakfast before I go. What would you like? Stormwind's kitchens are at your service, Black Prince."

The dragon smiled wickedly. "I'd like the plumpest sheep from Elwynn's pastures, alive and bleating, so that I can eat it raw and ruin your carpet."

Anduin laughed, taking Wrathion's bearded chin in his hand. "You wouldn't dare."

"Don't test a dragon's appetite, Your Majesty."

"Raw mutton, then," Anduin said wryly, rising to his feet. "And perhaps some corned beef hash and bacon. I'll have some sent up with my normal breakfast and we can eat together."

It was Wrathion's turn to hesitate. "...are you sure that's wise?"

Anduin turned, looking surprised. "Why would it be unwise?"

"You haven't told anyone yet that you're bedding a dragon?" Wrathion asked.

The silence that then stretched between them was thick enough to have been cut with a sword.

"It's fine," Anduin said, a shield of royal indifference returning with a wave of his hand. "It's no secret that Magni's advisor is a welcome friend of House Wrynn. We owe you a debt of gratitude for single-handedly leading our champions into the bowels of Ny'alotha to save us from the Old Gods' insanity. They won't know that you rolled directly out of my bed."

"If you're certain," Wrathion said with a shrug. "You know the members of your household and their tendency to whisper behind your back better than I would."

"Humans always find something to whisper about and you are my honored guest," Anduin said, running his hand under his ponytail and over the back of his neck as he glared through one of the windows, watching the sheer curtains flutter in the breeze. "I won't have you sneaking off on an empty stomach to scrounge for food at an inn somewhere. A king should be able to at least feed his lover."

"You keep me well fed, Your Majesty," Wrathion said, allowing his easy smirk to return. "I doubt there's ever been a consort in the history of dragonkin who's managed to keep their beloved so fully satisfied."

Anduin's face was thoroughly flushed, but he stepped forward to clasp both of his hands around Wrathion's and bring the back of the dragon's hand to his mouth for one last, measured kiss before he turned on his heel and strode out of the bedroom to summon a servant.


	2. Trouble in the Eastern Kingdoms

It is astonishing just how much of what we are can be tied to the beds we wake up in in the morning and it is astonishing how fragile that can be.

\- Neil Gaiman

* * *

The first thing Wrathion did after breakfast was burrow into the nest of unmade sheets atop the king's bed in a food-induced bliss. The second thing he did was nap for another lazy hour. The third thing he did was methodically open every single drawer in Anduin's chambers. He ignored the more intimate items, including what looked like a diary, instead taking stock of the various potion bottles and capsules that were tucked away. The containers held a variety of painkillers of varying strength and every bottle had a different degree of fullness. There seemed to be one or two more every visit and this time was no exception. In the bathroom, Wrathion checked a handwritten list taped to the back of a hidden compartment behind the mirror above Anduin's sink. This, too, changed frequently. The list dictated an ever lengthening regimen of daily and weekly doses of the potions. What to do with this information, Wrathion did not know, but he felt a strong compulsion to catalogue it in his head nonetheless. This time, he noted that the evening prescription had changed once again, for the third visit in a row. The king was having difficulty sleeping.

As alluring as the idea of a second bath was, Wrathion was reluctant to wash away the traces of Anduin's scent from his body. Instead, he cast a minor enchantment that he often used while on the road to freshen up. He collected his traveling clothes and used a more thorough set of spells to iron out the wrinkles and stains before folding the clean garments into his bag. He dressed in the spare airy tunic and light pants he had brought with him to endure Stormwind's muggy summer days and wrapped his hair back into the turban, fastening the ruby adornments as decoration.

The Black Prince quietly strolled out of Stormwind Keep via the servant's quarters, cloaking himself in a subtlety spell that dropped only when he had reached the public gardens next to the Keep's western border, the cozy Embassy cabins with their rippling Ren’dorei, Lightforged, Dark Iron, and Kul Tiran banners just within view. The day was bright and beautiful, only just beginning to get too hot from the approach of midday. Wrathion took in the floral, salty, southern air as he wandered through the shaded green paths to stretch his legs. The trail led him around the perimeter of the lake, ending with the bright blue ocean in Stormwind Harbor.

_Wrathion disembarked from a ship alongside hundreds of void and gore-drenched champions of the Alliance and champions of the Horde. Chunks of a rune-bound Old God's corpse were packed away as souvenirs in the hull to be unloaded by the court mages and warlocks for later analysis. He lingered, alone, basking in the sights and sounds as he moved amongst the throng. All of Stormwind had descended upon the harbor to tend to the wounded and to celebrate. Laughter, screams, tears, music and dancing, the stimulation and the sun, it was almost too much for a dragon who spent most of his time traveling alone in the shadows. For the first time in years, though, Wrathion swelled with a renewed sense of pride and certainty. He had at last taken a step in the right direction as a true earth dragon, as a protector of Azeroth._

_He froze at the sight of King Anduin making his way through the crowd, shaking hands and clasping shoulders as he went. The young king looked as tired and haggard as any one of his champions did, still very much up to his neck in the business of wrapping up the Fourth War and fighting off the last of the now retreating primordial whispers. But the look of resentment that Wrathion had become accustomed to seeing on his former friend’s face was gone. In its place, instead, was a reserved expression of quiet gratitude._

_Wrathion attempted to bow. Anduin reached out to stop him. Without a word, the king supported Wrathion’s wounded arm and removed it from the makeshift sling. Murmuring a prayer under his breath, the king started using the Light to tend to the fracture. On that day, the day N'zoth had died, High King Anduin Wrynn absolved Wrathion, the Black Prince, of his previous sins and allowed the mending of their friendship to begin._

Turning away from the docks, Wrathion struck out towards the entrance to the denser part of the city. Silithus was bereft of many indulgences and after weeks of having to make do with the encampment's skin-peeling liquor, the Black Prince was desperate to satiate a craving for cold, fresh beer. There was always a tavern open somewhere in the Dwarven District. Out of convenience, Wrathion picked the first one he came upon: the Golden Keg.

The time of day made no difference, the tavern was already filled with a fair assortment of dwarf, human, draenei and gnome patrons. A young draenei bard sat perched upon a stool near the fireplace, his nimble fingers strumming an easy tune on a lyre while his lithe voice carried through verses about a human hunter and his stag shapeshifter lover. Despite the tranquility of his song, he had a tense look on his face. The lyrics drew jeers from some of the ruddy-faced human patrons and displeased frowns from others. Wrathion wove his way through the sparse crowd, tilting his body as he went to avoid jostling any shoulders or hips, and slid into one of the open seats at the bar. He made eye contact with the barkeep, whose shoulders jerked in surprise upon meeting the strange, glowing red eyes, but nonetheless gave the dragon a welcome nod.

“What can I do for you, Master Dragon?” he asked, resting one hairy hand on the wood surface before Wrathion, the other coming to rest on his hip.

“It’s been quite some time since I’ve had the pleasure of tasing proper ale on my tongue,” Wrathion said, letting his chin rest on one propped hand as the barkeep clucked his tongue in sympathy. “What do you suggest that might adequately quench my thirst?”

The dwarf smirked, running his fingers over the elaborate braids in his beard. “If you’re looking for good beer, you’ve come to the right place. I’m afraid you’ve found me a bit out of my element, though. What kind of brews do dragon tongues prefer?”

“I cannot speak for all dragons, but this one has developed a taste for strong hops.”

The barkeep handed Wrathion a sample of a light, cloudy ale in a shot glass, which Wrathion tasted and accepted a full mug of. He kept to himself as he drank. Most of the patrons seemed curious, but not enough to actually strike up a conversation with the dragon who had wandered into the tavern. His ears only perked up at the sound of Anduin’s name.

“We’ll get an heir to the throne as soon as some unlucky lady conquers the king’s dead libido,” someone said, prompting a string of more laughs and escalating jeers about everything from the Wrynn family’s potency to trysts with male stablehands.

Wrathion managed to swallow the smoke building in his breast, tuning out the conversation to polish off two more beers and exchange light, flirting smalltalk with the braided dwarf behind the bar. He gave up his seat and ventured forth to peruse the racks of dried meat hanging on hooks off the adjacent wall. He selected a few salted cuts of barbecued beef jerky, a jar of spiced pickles, and two bottles of beer, all which he stored in his rucksack. The enchantment he had woven into the straps made the contents seem as light as a feather. 

Enjoying the buzzing sensation now coursing through his mortal veins, the Black Prince strolled into the Trade District where colorful summer displays gleamed in the shop windows. He wandered into every bookstore that he stumbled across, scanning titles and savoring the feeling of gilded text imprinted into leather spines beneath his fingertips. Ebyssian wasn’t much of a reader and druidic taste in literature was very specific; he was tired of reading about flora and fauna. He accumulated a respectable stack of books on gnomish mathematics to pass the time on the return journey, the anticipation of which he tried to push from his mind.

Wrathion’s ear eventually caught the distant sound of brass bells, signaling the end of that morning’s service. The Black Prince made his way across the channel to where the great, white Cathedral of Light towered above the water. The streets were dense with churchgoers trickling back out into the city, loosening their ties and unbuttoning collars as they went. The dragon ignored the occasional nervous look that came his way as he ducked through a gap in the buildings, where the cathedral steps came into view.

The plaza surrounding the holy building was packed with men, women, and a great many children brimming with pent-up energy. Long tables piled with roasted chicken, corn, baked potatoes, and jars of strawberry shortcake had been laid out to satiate the churchgoers’ appetites. The air carried a thick perfume of potent incense that tickled Wrathion’s nose in a rather unpleasant way. Wrathion couldn’t recall ever seeing so many human babies in one place and tried not to think about how many generations could be snuffed out if something cataclysmic were to happen in that spot. Instead, he leaned against the trunk of a tree and folded his arms, scanning faces as he enjoyed the shade. 

He spotted the king standing at the base of the steps, surrounded by his citizens and a cloister of men dressed in priests’ robes and miters, a gracious smile on his face as he listened to a mother speak while he cradled her baby in his arms. Anduin seemed almost radiant in the sunlight, a serene eye of calm in the center of the throng. There was an undercurrent of anxiety in the crowd, the snippets of conversation Wrathion caught from the sea of noise around him were about the hardships plaguing the kingdom, but the faces of the parents and their families around the king seemed at ease. Anduin raised two fingers, glowing with the Light, and laid a gentle blessing on the forehead of the newborn before handing her back to her mother. Without missing a beat, he turned to greet yet another parishioner who had been waiting to speak to him, the warmth in his attentive expression unwavering.

“I didn’t realize the Black Dragonflight had an affinity for the Light,” came a voice at Wrathion’s shoulder.

Wrathion had sensed the approach of Genn Greymane moments before and so was able to turn to face him, unperturbed. The dragon unfolded his arms to give the Gilnean king a deep, formal bow.

“Your Majesty,” Wrathion said. “It’s more of a curiosity. Every visit, I consider attending one of your services to see what all the fuss is about.”

“I’m not certain that you would be welcome,” Greymane’s response was, on the surface, smooth and polite. “You will need to receive permission from the archbishop to even step through the door. I’m not sure what the scriptures say about an earth-dragon’s presence disrupting the sanctity of the cathedral.”

At that moment, Wrathion sensed a few of the guards, drawn by the sound of Greymane’s voice, turn to look at him. They were all dressed in the same uniform of silver, blue, and gold trimmed plate, baking in the sun at their stations around the perimeter of the yard. They stood more or less at rest, pole-arms idle in their hands, but he was most certainly the only thing in the peaceful gathering that they felt deserved their attention.

“Thank you for the advice,” Wrathion said with a nod. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ve overstayed my welcome. I will leave you to your religion.”

Greymane simply stared back with weary gray eyes. Wrathion could feel the worgen’s sight follow him out of the shadow of the Cathedral square. The dragon maintained slow, even footsteps until he was across the canal. Then, his tempo quickened, the ends of the sash around his waist knocking against his knees as he walked.

The Black Prince decided that he’d had enough of perusing Stormwind City’s sights. If there was one thing rogues detested while in public, it was having eyes upon them.

* * *

The baptismal crowd was dwindling at long last. All of the food had been picked clean from the picnic tables and the remaining patrons had settled into a lazy afternoon lull as they digested. Anduin’s sight was drawn to new movement at the edge of the stairs, where he spotted a familiar head of gray hair. The king excused himself from the small group of lingering parents and clergymen and made his way over to the older man dressed in a finely embroidered black suit and cream cravat pinned with a gold family crest.

"Light be with you, King Greymane," Anduin said with an incline of his head.

"And also with you, Your Majesty,” Genn returned with a similar gesture.

A faint breeze drifted across the steps, providing some temporary relief from the sun that faded too quickly. Anduin was about to ask if Greymane had enjoyed the service, when the other king spoke first.

"I wanted to apologize," Genn began. "For my temperament as of late. Our discussions turn heated more frequently than not, and I bear the burden for that. I wouldn't have expected tensions between us to increase as tensions with the Horde abated."

Anduin felt a small measure of relief loosen his shoulders and he was able to smile. "It's understandable. We've had far more practice in knowing how to conduct ourselves during wartime. I think in my heart I've always suspected that peace would be more...complicated."

"One set of problems replaced with another," Genn noted with a sigh as he ran a hand over his beard, looking up to the cross nailed above the cathedral door.

"There's no need to apologize, Genn," Anduin continued, raising his hands in deference. “Truly, I understand. The conflict between Gilneas and the Forsaken runs deep. I am not so blinded by hope that I expected signatures on a piece of paper would dissolve all tensions between our factions overnight.”

Genn nodded in concession, his gaze returning to meet Anduin’s.

"It's good to see you with a smile on your face and more color in your cheeks," Genn said, suddenly, his expression warm as he studied the High King. "You look as though you've been touched by the Light."

Anduin looked away to hide his blush. "Thank you, Genn. It's been a fine day. I feel...happier than I have in weeks."

"You really ought to take better care of yourself," Genn remarked. "Until you have a wife to remind you to do so."

Anduin laughed, though his smile no longer reached his eyes.

"I'm not joking," the other king prodded. "You'll find that old age catches up on soldiers quickly. And with the wounds that you've already sustained, you shouldn’t test the limits of your endurance."

Anduin nodded in partial agreement. With every year that passed, he seemed to feel more of the lines from his old fractures. Velen and the Mistweavers had warned him of this when he was younger, that the brittle rifts left from his injuries would continue to worsen over time. He had naively thought that at least his twenties would be kinder.

"We shouldn't discuss this in so public a space," Anduin said, glancing at the edge of the stairs where the last few families were milling about just out of earshot, chatting and bouncing their sleepy children under the mid-afternoon sun. “Please be assured, I am well accustomed to taking care of myself."

Genn put a hand to rest on Anduin's shoulder and squeezed. Anduin felt the tension across his upper back return. It was not a reaction that he was used to having to the familiar paternal gesture. He tried to relax and smile.

"Forgive me for taking my leave, but I must finish my duties here. And perhaps get a bite to eat myself somewhere.”

"I won't keep you, then, my dear boy," Greymane said. His eyes narrowed just a fraction. "By the way, did you happen to run into Magni’s dragon emissary earlier today?"

"The Black Prince?" Anduin asked, as if there were any number of dragons representing the Speaker in Stormwind that Greymane could have been referencing.

The other man gave a grunt in affirmation.

"Yes, in fact, I passed by him on the street as I made my way here," Anduin said as he maintained perfect, well-practiced eye contact. "We exchanged a few words. I believe he has other business to attend to in the city before he departs."

“Does it involve the Crown?”

“If it does, I’m not aware of it.”

Greymane sniffed, but nodded. Anduin excused himself with one final bow, heart stuttering in his breast.

It took almost another hour to wrap up his duties at the Cathedral. After the last of the families had been seen to, the clergy wanted to give their thanks again and speak to him about further relief efforts for the farmers in Westfall. Anduin took note of the names of two priests in particular who would be making journeys to and from Sentinel Hill over the next month. He gave his word that he would be in touch to provide supplies for distribution.

At last, the king struck out into the streets, alone. It was difficult to justify the need for a personal security detail in Stormwind when there were guards standing on nearly every street corner, not to mention unseen SI:7 agents threaded throughout the city. Anduin did not head back to the Keep. He felt a strange compulsion to find something to bring back to Wrathion. 

On instinct, he wandered into a small flower shop, but the instant he stepped into the cool room and inhaled the sharp, floral-perfumed air, he felt foolish. He squirmed to picture the incredulous, teasing look on the Black Prince’s face when presented with something so obscenely romantic. _Flowers, really, Anduin Wrynn?_ But he had already been noticed by the shopkeepers and balked at the idea of leaving empty handed, so he purchased a single white rose to save face.

“Is this for your sweetheart, Your Majesty?” the clerk asked, her cheeks tinged red and eyes shining with excitement as she took the generous amount of coin from his hand. “Oh, this is far too much! We could fill a carriage with the number of flowers this could buy!”

Anduin put his hand up to reassure her. “Please, keep it. And, no, I was just struck by the thought of bringing something back from this beautiful day to enjoy on my desk.”

Anduin fingered the stem as he walked, occasionally lifting it to brush the soft petals across his nose. His attention was drawn by the sound of small voices yelling his name and title. He spotted Matron Nightingale struggling to maintain order over a cluster of young children who were jumping and waving, some running over the bridge to surround him. He chided the outliers gently and led them back to a very grateful Nightingale. Spotting a bakery nearby, he offered to buy something for the group and a cup of coffee for the matron, both of which were accepted with great enthusiasm. The children picked out treats from behind polished glass display cases while Matron Nightingale and Anduin sipped the hot, black brew from paper cups and made small talk about the state of the orphanage, particularly the lack of good beds. Anduin promised to have spare bedrolls sent over from the Keep by the end of the day. The king took his leave once the bill had been settled and resumed his aimless path through the Trade District. He wondered, a little too late, if he should have taken the opportunity to purchase something that would have satisfied the dragon’s sweet tooth.

He was about to turn back when a bookstore sign caught his eye. Anduin hesitated, wondering if he was even capable of selecting a title that would match the Black Prince’s intellect, but he stepped inside anyway.

The shop was empty. Its keeper looked somewhat startled to see a customer and did a double-take over his reading once he registered that the visitor was none other than the King of Stormwind. Anduin smiled and gave a small wave as he passed, weaving through the shelves. He inhaled the comforting smell of old paper and oiled leather. In the back, sitting on top of a heap of battered, well-used dime novels was a scroll bound in a familiar style and fastened with a cord of red-dyed hemp. Anduin picked up the scroll and read the title. It was a collection of pandaren poetry.

“I should be paying you to take this off my hands,” the shopkeeper said as he wrote Anduin a receipt and jotted the sale down in his ledger. “Please enjoy, Your Majesty.”

* * *

Anduin ascended the stairs to his chambers, stiff from being on his feet for most of the day and feeling the slight sunburn that had bloomed across his face for the first time now that he was consistently in the cool shadows. He was energized from the relief of fulfilling his promise to Matron Nightingale, having come from seeing a few servants off with a surplus of extra bedrolls and pillows for the orphanage. He exchanged polite nods with the guards stationed in the hallway before bolting his parlor doors shut behind him. He paused by his desk to drop the rose and the scroll on his way to the bedroom, where he found Wrathion sprawled across the still unmade bed. 

For a brief moment, Anduin indulged in the sight of the Black Prince as he was when he thought he was unobserved, reclining with his cheek resting on the knuckles of one hand, a contemplative look on his face as he studied the pages of the book spread across the sheets in front of him. Fangs peaked through the slight movement of his lips as he murmured to himself while he read, a few dark curls of his hair falling across his brow. He looked utterly at ease, an unguarded sense of wonder on his face as he drank in the information printed on the page beneath his fingers. At the sound of Anduin’s leather boots in the doorway, his expression tightened into a far more controlled one as he looked up, a cool but no less handsome smirk splayed across his face.

“Welcome back, King Anduin,” he said, softly.

Anduin kicked off his shoes and made his way over to the bed, sliding down behind Wrathion so that their bodies were cradled together. Wrathion shifted his position slightly to settle into the curve of Anduin’s waist. The king slipped his hand under Wrathion’s arm to lay his palm across his chest, feeling not one but two heartbeats beneath the pads of his fingers, and tucked his feet underneath the soles of the dragon’s. He dipped his chin down so that his mouth rested in the dip of Wrathion’s neck, kissing him twice and inhaling the dragon’s scent as he tried to make sense of the diagrams printed on the page. Wrathion’s body felt warm and comfortingly solid beneath him.

“What is that?” Anduin asked.

“A model of an electronic non-periodic oscillator,” Wrathion replied.

“Ah, of course.” 

A laugh rumbled down the length of Wrathion’s entire body.

“It’s something I picked up in your Trade District earlier.”

Wrathion closed the book over his finger to show Anduin the cover, turning slightly so that he could see the other man’s face. Anduin raised a hand to comb through the dragon’s hair.

“How was church today, Your Majesty?” Wrathion asked as he leaned into the touch.

“It went very well,” Anduin felt his face soften as he recalled the morning’s service. “Over fifty new souls have been blessed as members of the Church of the Holy Light. I’m sorry I was gone for so long, it took longer than I expected.” 

Wrathion let his hand slip from the book’s pages as he rolled beneath Anduin’s arm to face him properly. 

“You should be sorry.”

Anduin smiled and arched a quizzical brow as the dragon leaned in and closed the distance between their mouths. His grip tightened on Wrathion’s hair and waist as their hips buckled closer. 

“I am a very impatient dragon, after all.”

* * *

The clouds in the sky were painted in dusty shades of pink and orange as they filtered the light of the setting summer sun. Anduin had thrown open every window in his chambers to let in the cool evening air. The room was hot from the day and the heat of their bodies, but the slight breeze provided just enough relief. Anduin lay sprawled across a heap of pillows on the rug in front of the unlit fireplace, blond hair spilling away from his neck and sweat drying on his skin. Wrathion returned from fetching his backpack from the parlor, carrying the two generous bottles of dwarvish beer he had obtained at the Golden Keg.

“How is it that you always manage to look so cool,” Anduin grumbled as Wrathion tucked his legs and sank down beside him in one graceful motion.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Wrathion said, removing one cap after the other.

Anduin shifted to sit higher against the pillows and reached to take the offered bottle. The beer sloshed as Anduin’s hand dipped, face tightening in pain as he moved the other hand to press against his hip. Wrathion’s brows furrowed as he watched the king adjust his weight in a way that clearly favored one side over the other.

“Just a cramp,” Anduin said with a grin that did nothing to alleviate the dragon’s concern.

“I brought something for you from Silithus, if you’re interested,” Wrathion said, running a claw across the paper label wrapped around the bottle as he pretended not to notice Anduin quietly calling the Light to soothe what remained of his right leg. “It’s a kind of druidic pipe herb that can alleviate aches and pains. It’s said to be gentler on the body than potions.”

Anduin raised an eyebrow, the glow diminishing. “Well, I’m certainly up for trying, but you’d have to teach me how to use it.”

Wrathion laughed. “The King of Stormwind doesn’t know how to smoke? How do you manage to socialize with the nobles in the drawing rooms at parties?”

“Very poorly,” Anduin said, hiding his blush behind another swig of beer.

Wrathion pulled his pack closer and fished out both the leather pouch and the blown glass pipe he had purchased in Tanaris. The king watched with mild curiosity as Wrathion managed to pack a small amount of the leaf into the bowl without spilling too much. He lifted the pipe to Anduin’s mouth and showed him how to inhale, keeping one finger pressed to a small hole on the side.

“Don’t take in too much,” Wrathion warned. “I gave some to another human while on the road and observed the effect to measure the potency. It’s known to stoke either feelings of calm or elation, which is why my brother enjoys it, but every mortal is different.”

“So this will be an experiment,” Anduin copied Wrathion’s tone and smirk. “How _fascinating_.”

Wrathion lit a flame on the dry skin of his thumb and carefully held it to the bowl. After some false starts and a bit of coughing, Anduin exhaled a fair cloud of familiar-smelling smoke, closing his eyes. He sighed and settled back down in the pillows, eyelids fluttering.

“Is this something you also use?” he asked, peeking up at the Black Prince from under his blond eyelashes.

“No, I’m afraid it doesn’t work for me,” Wrathion admitted. “It only puts me on edge. It may do the same for you.”

“I don’t feel any different.”

“It may take a moment. You will know when it takes effect.”

Anduin ran his hand across Wrathion’s thigh, letting his fingers linger on a scar that ran all the way around the limb. “I don’t know how you do it, but you always manage to teach me something new with every visit.”

“Ah, so that’s why you keep letting me back into your bed.”

Anduin laughed, laying a light smack on the dragon’s leg. “No, I keep letting you into my bed so that you can frighten away the daughters the nobles are throwing at me.”

“I always forget that your people are very keen on breeding you as if you were a prized cow.”

“That’s…not an uncharitable way of framing it,” Anduin said as he shut his eyes and ran a hand over his weary face. “It’s not even that I don’t want children, but…”

He struggled to choose his words, turning the glass bottle around and watching the pattern of lights reflect off the dark brown glass.

“I understand the desire for children, even from your people,” Wrathion stared out the window. “They are a sign of life, a sign that your species has a future. But, unlike the Black Dragonflight, you humans seem to have no shortage of them.”

“No,” Anduin said, his tone turning melancholy. “We do not. The war has made so many orphans. Any one of them could be just as capable of ruling, if I were just allowed to teach them. The way the nobles carry on, though, it’s as if there’s something in Wrynn blood that’s imperative to the survival of the kingdom.”

“Is that not what human monarchy is, though?” Wrathion asked, gesturing with the hand that held his beer bottle. “Succession and everything?”

Anduin remained quiet for a while. Wrathion wondered if the herb was beginning to take hold.

“My mother had an idea,” the king said, face tilted to look at the ceiling. “Of putting an end to divine birthright. But, she died before she could ever present a formal plan for that. And my father had so much to deal with during his reign, he never seemed to get around to arranging a marriage for me. So here I am, unbetrothed and as free as I could possibly be under the circumstances.”

“A toast to Varian Wrynn, then,” Wrathion said, trying to keep his voice light as he stretched out his arm to clink the mouths of their bottles together. 

Anduin still seemed distracted and did not follow Wrathion’s lead and take a drink. Instead, his free hand reached for the dragon’s back. Wrathion rumbled in satisfaction as he felt Anduin’s fingers begin to run over his sore muscles.

“You could stay.”

Wrathion looked down and met the king’s gray-blue stare. There was a glassy look of shy, unguarded hope.

“With me. Officially. We wouldn’t need to do this in secret if I publicly named you my consort.”

A small feeling of dread began to rise in Wrathion’s chest. Still, he reached over to tuck Anduin’s long, soft hair behind his ear, brushing the other man’s jaw as he went.

“You would have me by your side?” Wrathion asked. “You would bind a male dragon to you in religious and political ceremony, despite the fact that there is no precedent for such a marriage in the history of Stormwind’s monarchy?”

A dark look flickered across Anduin’s eyes before he turned away. The Black Prince took Anduin’s chin in gentle fingers and tilted his face back up.

“I would stay here with you, if that is what you truly want, Anduin Wrynn,” he said. “I would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you as you led your armies into battle and warm you in your bed every night as you slept.”

“Yes, it’s what I want,” Anduin murmured, eyelashes flickering as he sank into the warmth of Wrathion’s palm. “To never wake up without you again.”

Wrathion watched as the king melted in pleasure and turned the fantasy over in his mind. In the last of the day’s sunlight, Anduin seemed not like a weary king or a war-tempered soldier, but vulnerable and…human. Wrathion himself could picture the scene that the king was thinking of in vivid detail. He could see himself dressed in long, fine robes woven in Stormwind’s blue and gold colors, a bright circlet adorning his dark hair. Anduin standing beside him in all of his splendor, sovereign’s orb in one hand and scepter in the other as they were somehow married by a church that considered it blasphemy to let a dragon take even a single step into a cathedral.

Wrathion held his tongue for another moment, allowing the illusion to last just a little longer.

“But we cannot live in that bed,” the Black Prince pointed out, his voice as gentle as he could make it. “What would your people think if Deathwing’s son stood so close to the throne of Stormwind, let alone a man and someone who cannot provide heirs to its king?”

The look that flickered across Anduin’s face told Wrathion that he had said all that he needed to.

“They can think what they want.” The slight hitch in Anduin’s tone betrayed his lack of confidence. “It doesn’t matter. Even the High King has a right to some privacy at his hearth.”

“It isn’t just that,” Wrathion said, letting his fingers comb through the ends of the king’s hair. “I’m sure you’re not the first king to have another man secretly in his bedchamber. You’re speaking of a public, political union.”

Anduin turned away to sit up fully with his knees pulled close to his chest. He stared into the dark recess of the unlit ash-coated fireplace and took another long, slow drink from the bottle.

“You know I’m not ashamed of you,” he said, abruptly, his voice uncharacteristically harsh.

Wrathion’s eyes widened in surprise. The thought had never once crossed his mind. “Of course.”

“I would gladly take your hand in the street,” Anduin ran his fingers over his closed eyes. “I would kiss you in front of my entire guard, the court, the bishop…”

Wrathion put his beer down and moved so that he sat pressed against the king’s side. He wrapped one arm around the king’s broad shoulders and took his hand with the other. The king remained tense, refusing to meet the dragon’s eye.

“Anduin, the opinion of mortals is not my concern. It makes no difference to me whether your entire kingdom knows of this tomorrow or if we carry on as we have for the next thousand years.”

The king flinched and Wrathion tried not to think of how little of those hypothetical years Anduin would live for.

“It is you that I worry about,” he said, tightening his grip on the other man’s scarred hand. “As High King, you stand on the edge of a precipice with not just Stormwind but the entire Alliance behind you holding the tips of their swords to your back. Every action you take determines whether those blades come closer or whether they are drawn back.” 

Anduin sighed and pinched his fingers over the bridge of his nose.

“Not to mention you would never be happy here,” the king admitted into the cup of his hand. “As consort, you would be expected to stay in Stormwind. Your duties would involve conducting a number of endless, petty ceremonial tasks in my name. You wouldn’t be able to travel as you wished. You’d read through our entire library twice within a year. You’d go mad, boredom would corrupt you quicker than N’zoth ever could.”

It was the truth, Wrathion knew. The feeling of salt-laced winds from Stormwind’s harbor blowing across his wings would grow stale far quicker than he would like to admit. Even if it meant laying his head to rest on Anduin’s pillow every night to fall asleep with the king’s arms wrapped around his waist.

“I feel strange,” Anduin said. “My head, it’s…lighter…”

“Ah, that would be the herb, I believe,” Wrathion teased, knuckles running up the length of Anduin’s arm.

“The pain, though…” Anduin continued, pressing his palm to his chest. “It is better. Much better.”

Wrathion leaned in and pressed his lips to Anduin’s brow. “Good. That is the effect I had hoped for.”

A small grumble from Anduin’s torso made both of them look, startled, into each other’s eyes.

“I haven’t eaten much today,” Anduin said, sheepishly. “Light, I’m…strangely hungry. I’ll have to slip down to get something from the kitchens.”

With a smirk, Wrathion once again dipped into his pack and produced the dried meat and pickles. Anduin’s eyes lit up.

“Ah, the magic of the Black Dragonflight is truly wondrous,” he laughed.

“Let’s talk about something else,” Wrathion said, using his claw to draw a neat slice of the meat. “We only have so many hours together. We should try to fill most of them with enjoyable things.”

Anduin maintained perfect, tantalizing eye contact as he leaned in and sank his teeth into the generously salted piece of jerky Wrathion held between his outstretched claws.

* * *

In the blue light of the dawn, the Black Prince, dressed in his dark traveling leathers, busied himself with packing his bag. The king stood leaning against the windowsill, arms folded across his chest and eyes downturned, the breeze drifting in around his back. His mood followed the dragon as he swept through the room, collecting the few possessions he had scattered about.

“Do you have any communications that you wish me to relay to the Speaker on your behalf?” Wrathion asked as he nestled the last of his books on top. “Political or personal?”

Anduin shook his head. One hand was at his face, his thumb rubbing against a small, white scar on his lip as he studied the carpet. Wrathion left his knapsack on the bed and moved to stand before the king, taking his waist between his hands.

“I’ll see you to the city gates,” Anduin said from over the tops of his knuckles.

“Then you’ll have the frustration of seeing me off without one last kiss,” Wrathion teased, running his thumbs down the seams of Anduin’s pants.

“Isn’t that how you prefer me,” Anduin noted. “Frustrated and wanting.”

Wrathion tilted his head and arched a brow in confusion at the bitterness. Anduin’s face reddened and he sighed, finally dropping his arms and meeting the dragon’s gaze with a softer expression.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, matching Wrathion’s grip by slipping his own hands across the dragon’s waist.

“You didn’t speak a lie,” Wrathion murmured, jokingly, leaning in closer so that his hips pressed Anduin’s against the stone ledge. “And maybe the knowledge that you aren’t the only one wanting will help keep you warm at night when I cannot.”

Anduin held Wrathion close, one hand coming to rest firmly on the back of the dragon’s neck, the other clamped across the small of his back.

“I have something for you,” Anduin said, after a moment.

Wrathion followed him into the parlor, over to the large oak desk. The king picked up the wrapped pandaren scroll, just before Wrathion’s nimble fingers found purchase on the rose’s stem.

“What’s this?” the dragon asked, his voice light and teasing as he raised the flower between them with a sweep of his hand.

“Nothing,” Anduin said, attempting to draw Wrathion’s attention to the scroll. “I picked this up for you. I thought you’d appreciate some extra reading in case you manage to get through your own before you reach Silithus…or…after…”

Wrathion’s smirk widened, leaves fluttering as he twirled the stem between his fingers and Anduin grew increasingly flushed.

“I have an entire encampment of druids at my disposal and you, in all your tactical brilliance, decide to get me a single flower?” the dragon needled, lightly tapping the petals against the king’s chin. 

Anduin scowled.

“I didn’t get that for you…in particular…” he retorted.

“Ah, I see, this would be for your other dragon lover, then,” the Black Prince continued, unrelenting. “Or maybe you’ve developed a new taste for garden decor?”

Anduin was at a complete loss for words. He struggled to keep his frown as he leaned against the desk, the scroll still sitting neglected in his outstretched hand.

“I think I will steal it from you, nonetheless,” Wrathion quipped, bringing the blossom to his own nose. “Something to hold when the stench of the road becomes unbearable and to teach you a lesson about letting rogues so close to your desk.”

“Take it if you want it,” Anduin said with a shrug.

Wrathion cupped his hand to shield the petals from being crushed as he leaned in and gave the king one long, final kiss.

* * *

In the silence left by the Black Prince’s absence, Anduin wandered about his quarters, aimless, hands tucked in his pockets as he struggled to shift his thoughts toward the day’s schedule. There was an early meeting with the stable-master to discuss his needs for taking the newest batch of war horse foals and training them for distribution as farm horses instead. Most of the day would be spent in the throne room, hearing requests from petitioners. The more sensitive inquiries had been provided to him beforehand, in warning. A list with those names waited for him at the top of his desk’s receiving box. He would need to have details sorted and responses prepared for each of them before he departed. But before that, maybe there would be time for some breakfast. Most certainly a cup of coffee.

Anduin stopped at the bed. One of Wrathion’s fine shirts was laying on the mattress, neatly spread out in deliberate contrast to the chaos of the sheets. He picked it up, fingering the fine embroidery, which tingled strangely under his finger. The Black Prince was a tailor and made his own clothes by hand using a combination of draconic magic and meticulous needlework. The looms he built for himself on the fly would hold his work aloft in the air. His embroidery needles were sharp enough to pick locks. Watching Wrathion weave was to see a master craftsman in his element, face alight with concentration as his deft hands moved invisible arcane shuttles.

Anduin crumpled the fabric as he buried his face into the shirt, allowing one more moment to loose himself in the familiar scent.

* * *

In a small, unassuming corner of Old Town stood a cluster of ancient acorn trees. Their branches sheltered an almost cozy-looking stone structure with seeing eye and listening enchantments laced into the stonework and scalloped roof shingles. Inside this building, Spymaster Mathias Shaw sat at his office desk. He appeared to be studying his bookshelf, one hand raised to his mouth where his fingers stroked his mustache. His second in command, Renzik, stood leaning against the wall to his left, arms crossed and gaze fixed on the etched glass window. The muscles in the goblin’s neck bulged as his jaw clenched and unclenched. Operative Kia Herman sat in a small chair facing Shaw holding a stack of documents in her lap. On top was a piece of parchment that bore the seal of Stormwind’s House of Nobles, the governing body which ruled alongside the royal family. She was staring at the pile of empty, stained coffee cups stacked in the corner of the desk.

Somewhere outside, a bird was chirping in the boughs of the trees.

Shaw, at last, lowered his hand, turned to face Kia, and spoke.

“Let’s take a step back,” he said, laying out his words at a careful pace. “Do we know when, exactly, they obtained copies of the Pandaria records?”

Kia nodded, fingers rifling through the pile in her lap.

“This motion was passed four years ago to declassify all documents concerning SI:7 missions which took place on the ground outside of the Eastern Kingdoms’ borders,” she produced a document and reached over to hand it to Shaw, who began to read.

“What is the point of having documents sealed behind the most complex arcane wards in the kingdom if anyone from the House of Nobles has the authority to waltz in here and take what they want whenever they want it?” Renzik ranted, waving his gnarled hand in the direction of the basement.

“This happened during the Detheroc incident,” Kia explained. “Which is how they were able to do this without resistance. At the time, we were running a skeleton crew here, mostly trainees and operatives with less than two years’ experience. No one on site had the authority to resist an official request from the House, or knew enough to expunge more data from the records before handing them over.”

Shaw let the file drop to his desk. He reclined back, running a hand through his hair. The weathered lines on his face were deep.

“They said the information was found as a result of an unrelated inquiry,” Shaw said. “What was their original intent?”

“Documenting the total expense of sending ships on the original rescue mission to the continent,” Kia replied. “For accounting purposes. This was to determine how much was contributed by each noble house, so they could draft a motion for compensation from the royal treasury.”

Shaw glanced at Renzik, who shook his head.

“Based on the wording of their request, they most certainly already know what we know,” Shaw said. “I have a feeling they will proceed with or without us supplying additional details. If we refuse, however, they will interpret it as SI:7 taking a political side, and not in their favor.”

“We are _not_ going to give them more documents.” Renzik pushed back from the wall.

“This is only going to escalate.”

“Then let it escalate.”

Kia remained still as she watched Shaw and Renzik exchange sharp, fuming stares.

“Our resistance will give them the momentum to further erode SI:7 protocol,” Shaw stated, his voice cold, logical.

“Our resistance is for their protection,” Renzik growled back, jabbing two fingers into the opposite hand’s palm. “We operate in secrecy for damn good reasons and this is an active, ongoing investigation they want to stick their noses into. They have no right to question our methods.”

“They do currently have the right to dissolve the agency, though,” Kia chimed in.

“They wouldn’t dare,” Renzik declared.

Doubt drifted in wake of the long silence that followed.

“Starting today, we will take action to reverse this order,” Shaw said, his voice calm. “And we must include a scenario for emergency, legislative-backed information requests in our training for new recruits. Neither of these actions solves the problem at hand.”

The seal at the top of the stack in Kia’s hands burned like a brand. Shaw did not enjoy being what was, in practice, a political firefighter. An effective spymaster needed to take more preventative than reactive actions. Ever since Varian Wrynn’s death, SI:7 had been stretched too thin as they stamped out blaze after blaze. They were losing control. The document in Kia’s hands was the latest smoke signal.

“Our duty is to the kingdom,” Shaw stated. “If we interfere, at best we are standing between the noble houses and their right to investigate a potential threat to the autonomy of their primary governing body. At worst, it is treason.”

Renzik’s frown deepened, but at last, he gave a short, curt nod. Kia remained still.

“Satisfy their request, Operative Herman.”

* * *

Anduin had retired to his study for the evening, taking a plate of late dinner with him and a bottle of wine. He sat sideways at his desk with both ankles propped up on a spare chair he had pulled up alongside. Wrathion’s pipe sat in the corner next to the bottle of wine, smelling strongly of the smoldering herb that had gone out a while ago. He hummed in contentment, chin resting in his hand as he read through the last of the documents that had been placed in his receiving box that day, pausing occasionally to make a note in the journal at his elbow.

A noise at the window made him look up. A blood elf stood silhouetted by the moonlight, using her fingers to snuff out the flame in the third wick of the candelabra on the windowsill.

“Welcome, Valeera,” Anduin said with a smile, lowering his feet and reaching to brace his hands against the corner of the desk.

“Don’t get up, Your Majesty.”

Valeera Sanguinar strode over to a cabinet to help herself to a spare tall-stemmed glass. She carried it over to the desk along with a third chair, gesturing that Anduin should resume his previous position, which he did. Her narrow nose wrinkled as she reached for the wine bottle, seeming surprised to find the pipe.

“How long have you been doing this?” she asked as she poured.

“It was a gift,” Anduin dodged the question with a shrug. “I’m using it sparingly.”

Valeera raised a long brow, a small smile on her lips as she took her first sip. “I’m your personal spy, not your nursemaid, King Wrynn.”

“And I’m certainly grateful for that,” Anduin replied, reaching over to retrieve a stack of documents he had ready for her arrival.

They got to business, Anduin laying out his concerns from the reports contained in the stack, Valeera providing information from her recent mission to investigate the Scarlet Crusade.

“There’s one more thing,” Valeera said, when they were through. “I have some personal business that I must attend to. I will be away for several weeks.”

“Ah,” Anduin nodded. “I don’t suppose you can give me any details?”

Valeera’s stone-faced expression was enough of an answer.

“That’s fair,” Anduin smiled. “Forgive me for overstepping. Allow me at least to say that I hope, for your sake, it’s something akin to a vacation.”

“You should take care during this time.” Valeera let the comment slide, her expression unreadable. “I will not have my usual feelers out and about in Stormwind. I will be unable to intervene if there is trouble from inside the Horde or otherwise, you will have to rely on the competency of your personal king’s guard for your safety.”

“I’m sure they are more than up to the task,” Anduin said with a wave of his hand. “It’s peacetime and the Scarlet Crusade’s propaganda campaign has been abating. I have no reason to be fearful.”

"You'd be surprised how many enemies a king can make in one month," Valeera noted. “Especially during peacetime.”

Anduin reached for the bottle and refilled both of their glasses, raising his for a toast which Valeera accepted.

“May your journey be successful, Valeera,” he said. “Go with the Light.”

* * *

Wrathion stepped over the triangular Titan portal embedded in the sand-scarred stone rock, hands clasped behind his back. The hot, dark desert wind dissipated as the pad activated, enveloping him in a cool, crystal blue light. A moment later, he was standing at one end of the Chamber of the Heart, a familiar and not-unpleasant rhythmic thrumming in his ears.

He made his way to the end of the hall, where the path opened up into the lungs of the Chamber. It was usually empty nowadays. The altar where champions of both the Horde and the Alliance once convened on the regular to attune their pieces of Azeroth’s Heart now only hosted the occasional pilgrim who went out of their way to pay their respects. The dark gate Wrathion had erected stood empty, a rusting monument to a more chaotic time. He and Magni had wanted to deconstruct it, but MOTHER advised against it. She seemed to be of the opinion that it had become part of the Chamber itself now, like a spare bone that had grafted itself into a skeleton, and only harm would come from its removal.

Magni himself liked to spend time in the Chamber. The glass floor provided the thinnest barrier possible to Azeroth Herself without standing directly in a pool of her blue and gold blood. It was the best place in Silithus for the former dwarf to commune with the Titan.

“Good evening, Speaker,” Wrathion said with a flourish of his arm as he bowed before the living, crystalline form who stood at the altar.

“Good evening yerself,” Magni replied without ceremony, glancing up from the maps which were spread out over the surface. “Sorry for interrupting dinner.”

“You have the gratitude of the hyenas who roam just over the mountain in Tanaris,” Wrathion replied with a grin that showed all of his sharp teeth.

“I think it’s time to send another report to the Horde,” Magni said. “I want to see if you can use your silver tongue to get Go’el himself down here with some of his shamans. If Anduin’s got any to spare, another draenei or two wouldn’t hurt, but my preference would be for some dwarven expertise if Moira can convince a few of her shamans to come. The draenei are strong, but the dwarves have more experience with this land.”

Wrathion’s eyes scanned over the maps. The parchment held detailed topological sketches of Silithus. On top, diagrams of the known and estimated currents of azerite beneath the ground. There were far more estimations than certainty.

“It will be done, Speaker,” Wrathion said, leaning over to rest his elbows on the altar so he could keep studying the maps.

“Oh, that’s a lovely rose you have there,” Magni said with a nod toward Wrathion’s chest.

Wrathion’s hand drew up to cover where his coat had slipped when he’d bent forward, exposing the trimmed white rose head pinned to his shirt’s breast pocket. A simple enchantment over the petals kept them from wilting.

“Thank you, Speaker.”

“Is that from Stormwind?” Magni asked. “I don’t recall seeing any roses growing in the grass by the moonwell the last time I was over there.”

“Yes,” Wrathion said, tightening his coat’s collar.

“Ah, beautiful. Well, at any rate, mostly I think it’s time for you to stretch your legs,” Magni continued. “You become insufferable the longer you spend here without taking a break. It’s not right for a dragon to be cooped up in one place.”

Wrathion shifted, rearranging the order of the maps for no particular reason. 

“I can’t say that I disagree.”

* * *

When one responded to a petition for an audience before the House of Nobles, protocol demanded adherence to a rigid dress code. Shaw complied by donning a black shirt and cravat with his one and only tailored dinner jacket, breeches, and finest pair of leather boots. All were articles of clothing that rarely saw the sun but were nonetheless kept in immaculate condition. He kept them this way because it was an unfortunate fact that a royal Spymaster must be prepared to occasionally preen like a peacock, particularly when it came to asking the nobles that he protected for more funding.

While he held his position in the hall outside the chambers where the nobles gathered to hold court, Shaw checked the folds of his cuffs and the state of the pockets holding his hidden knives. The Spymaster was exempt from an inspection of his person upon entrance, one of the few who were allowed to keep their weapons while within the halls, where it was not uncommon for heated arguments to break out. A page arrived, bearing a quaint, handwritten note informing Spymaster Mathias Shaw that he was granted permission to enter.

So he did.

The grand room housed Stormwind’s court had a long, proud history as a public forum for the nobility. Law required that the sitting king must never be present unless he was explicitly summoned, which gave the other houses the freedom to speak their minds about matters pertaining to the kingdom without fear of retaliation. During reconstruction, the room had been fitted with elaborate stained glass windows and gilded leaf detailing. A great deal of coin had been spent to commission the oil paintings that hung between columns and the brass candleholders. Rows of raised dark wooden benches lined the perimeter, looking inward towards the center of the room where a podium stood facing a row of raised, cushioned thrones. Seated in the thrones were the leaders of each Noble House of the kingdom of Stormwind. 

Shaw made his way to this podium, where a chair had been provided. He took a seat and faced the twelve men and two women who presided over the current court, folding his freckled hands across his lap. The benches were more packed than Shaw had ever seen them: it seemed as if every member of the nobility had turned out for the day’s session, fanning themselves against the heat. Every single window had been opened, but there was no breeze to foster proper airflow.

A strange, prickling sensation ran up the back of Shaw’s spine.

“Master Mathias Shaw,” Count Ridgewell spoke from over the top of a piece of parchment. “You are brought before the House of Nobles to answer questions pertaining to the findings of SI:7’s investigation of an attempt by the Black Dragonflight to infiltrate the monarchy of Stormwind. Do you swear to answer the court’s questions to the best of your knowledge and ability without compromising the safety and security of the Eastern Kingdoms?”

“I swear it,” Shaw answered.

Ridgewell picked up a familiar scroll bearing the seal of SI:7. The room was completely silent save for the rustling parchment as it was unrolled.

“How long has High King Anduin Llane Wrynn, the current leader of the Alliance and residing monarch of Stormwind, been engaged in acts of sodomy with a member of the Black Dragonflight during his reign?”

“SI:7 first became aware of the king inviting a discreet party into his chambers on the fifth day of midsummer following the Invasion of Ny’alotha. Further investigation identified this individual as a black dragon.”

“Do you have reason to believe that this relationship began at an earlier date?” Ridgewell asked.

“SI:7 does not speculate,” Shaw stated. “Our earliest evidence is from the fifth day of midsummer of this year.”

“Does SI:7 have any reason to suspect that the relationship began before Anduin Wrynn was anointed as High King?”

“Yes.”

Murmurs rippled through the audience. Shaw remained still. Ridgewell motioned to Lord Wishock, sitting beside him, who passed a second scroll to him.

“SI:7 agent Field Medic Mishka’s report from the Pandaria Expedition includes testimony from two Alliance guards, Sir Alister Cromstock and Sir Bariston Reed. Can you confirm that these guards were stationed to act as personal bodyguards to Crown Prince Anduin Wrynn for the duration of his treatment by the mistweavers in Pandaria?”

“I confirm it.”

Ridgewell picked up a pair of glasses, slipping them over the bridge of his nose. Shaw brushed his thumb down the web of the opposite hand’s thumb and first finger.

“Can you confirm this statement, said by Sir Cromstock: _The Prince has been locking his bedroom in the evening, contrary to our recommendation. We do not have the rank to prevent this, nor do we wish to escalate the matter to High King Varian Wrynn. We are certain that the Prince is no longer spending his evenings alone. We can hear the voice of a second party, which we identify as belonging to Wrathion, the Black Prince and leader of Blacktalon._ ”

The whispers in the chamber had been growing. They did not abate when Shaw raised his voice again in confirmation.

“What is SI:7’s current statement on the matter?”

“SI:7 is currently monitoring the situation between High King Anduin Wrynn and Wrathion, the Black Prince,” Shaw said. “We have no reason to suspect evidence of foul play or black magic. SI:7 believes the relationship is strictly personal.”

Spymaster Mathias Shaw was dismissed. He left the chamber to the sound of noise erupting on the other side of the doors that closed behind him. There were three operatives amongst the nobility seated within the room and he knew he would be given a report on the full proceedings later that day. For the time being, Shaw loosened his cuffs and departed from the vicinity of Stormwind court.

In his office, later that evening, Mathias Shaw sat at his desk with his shirt collar unbuttoned and chin resting in his hand. A small bottle of whisky sat next to his cravat, lying wrinkled on top of a book of sailing knots. His green eyes were contemplating a square glass cup filled to the brim with amber liquid.

Shaw’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. He bade the visitor to enter.

Genn Greymane stood in the doorway, dressed in his own interpretation of court-appropriate garb, which was many degrees of refinement above Shaw’s. The spymaster gestured to the seat in front of his desk, which the Gilnean king took. Greymane’s face was dark. Deep, tired shadows cupped his eyes. Shaw noticed the king’s gaze lingering on the bottle of whisky. For a moment, neither man spoke.

“They’ve asked me to lead a coup,” Greymane said.

“I know,” Shaw replied.

Greymane seemed surprised, then resigned. “I assume I have SI:7’s support, then, as you haven’t yet had me assassinated?”

“Stormwind has decided that their king no longer serves in their best interest,” Shaw said, lifting his shoulders for a brief moment. “SI:7 will not act against the wishes of the people.”

The last traces of Greymane’s calm demeanor slipped and his fist came crashing down at the edge of Shaw’s desk. The wood shook from the force.

“How can you be so calm?” Greymane shouted, his voice penetrating no farther into SI:7 headquarters than the sound-canceling enchantments embedded in the office walls. “Anduin has been bewitched by a dragon. This is the second time in Stormwind’s history—in _Anduin’s_ history, even—that a black dragon has attempted to worm its way onto the throne through personal means. He’s been…forced…into doing unspeakable things that no man should have to endure.”

“You’ve read the reports, I take it,” Shaw said. “And you were in the audience during my testimony. I'll say again, we have no reason to believe that the High King was coerced into any action described by our operatives.”

“For a man whose job hinges on his ability to interpret nuance, I will assume that you are fully aware of what else you are implying with that statement, Mathias Shaw,” Greymane’s voice was a low growl. “Such slander about the High King can be written off if it comes from religious fanatics and farmers, but not if it comes from Stormwind’s spymaster himself.”

Shaw said nothing. Greymane sat back, shaking his head and adjusting his jacket cuffs. After a moment, he spoke again. This time, he was almost calm.

“SI:7’s expertise is worthy of respect,” the Gilnean king said. “However, it has no such ability to evaluate matters of magic. We must leave that matter up to the mages. I will lead a personal militia of Gilnean soldiers to take control of the city during the next visit from…Magni’s emissary. Will I have SI:7 with me on that day?”

Shaw’s demeanor did not waiver. His green eyes were focused.

“You have SI:7’s support, King Greymane.”

Once the office was empty and his door bolted shut, Shaw emptied the whisky from the glass in one, long series of unbroken gulps. He slipped his hand into his pocket and ran his finger and thumb across the surface of a stone. It was smooth and gritty, worn from where it had been knocked around by the waves before being washed up on a Kul Tiran beach, except for the grooves in the shape of initials carved into the surface.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Thanks exilefromlife who helped inspire the scene where Wrathion and Anduin reconcile on the Stormwind docks after the raid in Ny'alotha, an idea I fell so in love with that I had to also hastily scribble messy fanart for it: https://www.deviantart.com/silriven/art/Return-from-Ny-alotha-837423615
> 
> \- The state of Shaw's desk was inspired by meggo's amazing Fairshaw fanart and coffee addiction theory: https://twitter.com/meg_emmy_james/status/1256745428768489474?s=20


	3. Stochastic Arcana

Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?

\- Corinthians 6:9-10

* * *

Under the dark shadow of the blue and gold patterned canopy, Anduin bolted upright in bed, only to immediately double down over his abdomen, biting back a groan. The pain wracking his body had ripped him out of a dead sleep. Disoriented, he blinked through the crust in his eyes, struggling to pull the patch of moonlit bedspread into focus and gain purchase on the situation. He realized that this wasn’t merely one of many minor pains that could bother him at any time of day, but the dull, full-bodied ache of the Divine Bell’s lingering harmonic resonance raking through every one of his remaining bones.

He was so distracted that he did not recognize the sound of many armored footsteps in his parlor until the moment before his bedroom doors were thrown open. Anduin always kept the inner ornately carved doors closed but never locked while he slept. He never once thought it necessary, given the security of the outer doors to the parlor. He struggled to hold back a wince as he found himself looking into the helm-plated faces of ten of his personal king’s guard.

All pointing their swords at him.

“What’s happening?” he asked, buckling over a hand that clutched at his ribs beneath his sleep shirt. “Are we under attack?”

“High King Anduin Wrynn,” the guard at the center of the formation spoke, raising his sword a fraction higher, silver tip glowing in the moonlight. “You are hereby under arrest by the authority of King Regent Genn Greymane.”

Though the words did not make sense, Anduin recognized the voice as belonging to Ser Benjamin Oakley, someone who had guarded two generations of Wrynn kings. This was even the second reign of Anduin’s that the paladin had dutifully served.

“You have been charged with high crimes against the kingdom of Stormwind and conspiracy to disrupt the Great Alliance under coercion by the Black Dragonflight.”

These words, at last, brought the scene into terrible focus and Anduin felt the weight of them fill him with dread that reached deep enough to push away the pain. He threw back his head, mouth open wide to fill the room with an unholy psychic noise. Seven of the ten guards doubled over, disoriented, while the remaining three that blocked the attack lunged toward the bed. With a thrust of his hand, Anduin unleashed a succession of bright streaks that flew from his palm and collided with each guard, lucid or not, flooding the entire bedroom with a white hot light. In the chaos, the king untangled himself from his bedsheets. With a kick and a roll he scrambled from the edge of the mattress and onto the floor, crawling on hands and knee to the doors. He just managed to slam and bolt them shut to the sound of more soldiers entering the parlor.

He turned to face the carnage in the bedroom as behind him fists pounded upon the wood. His heart ached as he saw the bodies of his most trusted and loyal guards strewn over the floor, now unconscious by his own hand. A succession of whispers in primordial tongues began to creep into the recesses of his mind, lingering in the traces of the shadow magic that now tinged the room.

“Your Majesty!” the voice of another guard’s cries came through the door, muffled, and followed Anduin as he crawled back over to the bed. “The entire Keep has agreed to cooperate with the Gilnean militia. We ask that you surrender yourself peacefully.”

Anduin ignored the voice and the sound of gauntleted fists beating against the doors as he struggled to put on his leg. He was trained to keep his hands steady in stressful combat situations, but the shooting pain refused to abate. Every old fracture in his once-broken fingers burned and his hands fumbled with the device.

“Not one of us wishes to hurt you!” the voice continued to shout, right before the cracking snap of wood at the door. “But we will have you in custody by the end of this night, one way or another.”

Anduin at last managed to fasten the lock on the socket. As soon as his leg was in place, the king stood up and stumbled into the bathroom, slamming the door and bolting it shut with barely a second to spare before the bedroom doors were ripped from their hinges.

He stepped backwards over the tiled floor, roughly combing his shaking fingers through his hair, mind racing and heart pounding like an animal caught in a snare. He was truly trapped. Jaina’s hearthstone, bound to her parlor in Kul Tiras, sat in his desk drawer, useless. The only other exit from the bathroom was through the window, perched at the top of a tower with a five-story drop. He could use a levitation spell to ease the fall, something he had done countless times to slip undetected from his old bedroom when he was still a prince, but he wondered how far he could get, barely dressed and unarmed, once on the ground.

Nevertheless, at the thought of floating out the window, the Divine Bell’s relentless pain began to abate, leaving him shuddering from relief. Escape, not surrender, was clearly what the Light thought he should do.

The bathroom door rattled in its frame from what sounded like at least three soldiers battering it. It would not hold for much longer, even less if they paused to circumvent the lock. Anduin strode to the opposite end of the room and he pushed the glass frame open. He slid across the sill, readied the levitation spell, and let himself drop.

Muggy night air rippled through his sleep shirt and shorts and whistled in his ears as the dark grass sea in the courtyard below drew closer and closer. Just before he hit the ground, he unleashed the cast and was carried the rest of the way on a puff of barely-perceivable clouds. He dropped the spell, almost landing with his bare feet in a bush, and braced himself against the outer wall with one hand. He picked his way through the dirt, keeping his shoulders low as he assessed the state of the yard.

When he was satisfied that the way was clear, he bolted across the grass. He strained to listen for sounds of more guards, or this so-called militia that the king’s guard had spoken of, but the city was quiet. The stark contrast to the scene that had played out in his bedchamber set his nerves on edge and made him question if he was walking through a nightmare. Had N’zoth returned? He shook his head, fighting the paranoia from the residual whispers of shadow magic, still laughing in his ear. He could not afford to treat the situation as anything but reality.

It was difficult to make sense of time: Anduin had no idea how late in the night or early in the morning it was. He prepared a fade spell at his fingertips as he stumbled between buildings, making his way to the stables. He used it when he did see soldiers, rows of them, all running back in the direction to the courtyard where he just came from. They all bore Stormwind’s colors on their tabards.

The stables were unguarded; no servants had yet arrived to tend to the horses, and Anduin guessed that it was still early enough where he could risk mounting a horse and escaping over the mountain path around the northern shoreline. A few horses stirred in their stalls at the sound of Anduin’s metal heel hitting the packed dirt floor as he made his way to where Reverence had already drawn his head over the side of the door, huffing in recognition. The king took a brief moment to soothe the horse as he undid the latch and swung the door open. He unhooked the simple training reins from a nail in the wall and began to fasten the bit in the horse’s mouth, his fingers steady and sure despite the sweat in his palms and the burning pain in what remained of his right leg. Reverence shuddered, eyelids flickering to look at something over Anduin’s shoulder. The king turned his head.

One of the young stable hands was standing between him and the door, pointing the sharp end of a pitchfork at him. In the dark, Anduin could barely make out his face.

“Darian,” Anduin said, his voice calm, resuming his work to secure Reverence’s bridle. “There’s a revolt under way. I need you to alert as many of the Keep staff as you can and have everyone board up in the cellars.”

Darian did not move. Anduin realized that the boy’s shoulders were shaking. His eyes were staring at the king’s legs.

“They say you’ve been bewitched, Your Majesty,” the boy said.

“I assure you, I have not been bewitched,” Anduin stated, his voice firm.

Darian did not move to stop Anduin from taking a saddle and blanket from the wall, nor from returning to Reverence’s side, though he kept the sharp end of the pitchfork pointed at the king as he moved.

“It isn’t safe,” the king said. “You shouldn’t be out in the open with so many soldiers running around. You must protect yourself, get to the Keep and board up in the cellar.”

The boy flinched at the command, but didn’t budge.

“The others say you’ve been taken by a black dragon,” his voice was trembling. “And that he’s made you his slave.”

Anduin fought the panic rising in his chest. He said a small prayer in the back of his racing mind and drank in the small pool of calm that it brought him.

“Did I seem like I was under the control of a dragon when I gave you riding lessons the other day?” he asked, his voice steady and gentle as he fastened the last saddle buckle. “Would I have been able to use the Light to heal the scrape on your elbow when you fell last week?”

The boy’s stance wavered, the weight at the end of the pitchfork dipped.

“Darian, please, let me pass,” Anduin said, hands raised as if he were trying to calm one of the horses that stood nearby, watching the exchange. “I swear to you—“

Something heavy fell from the ceiling and Anduin stumbled under its weight. He lost his balance and fell, hard, grappling with what he realized was another person with their ankles crossed around his waist and arms looped around his neck. Reverence staggered warily, heavy hooves coming down close near Anduin’s head on the packed dirt floor.

Anduin’s intuition was to throw up a shield or radiate a holy blast outward from his entire body, but he couldn’t with Darian and Reverence so close. His fingers gripped the attacker’s arms and with a small prayer sparks burst under his fingertips. An unfamiliar hiss of pain sounded near his ear and a hand reached up to clamp his mouth and nose shut. Anduin choked, in panic he pitched his body sideways, managing to roll over to put the attacker beneath him. He attempted to pry the tightening hands from his face and throat, light burning under his hands.

Something stung his neck, like a bee, and his hand intuitively flew to his neck to slap it. The attacker was at once gone, leaving him gasping for breath and scrambling to push himself up. Anduin swerved his head around, Reverence’s white flank and the wood and metal stall doors blurring together. His hands found purchase on the ground and he climbed to his knees, using the side of a stall door as a crutch. There was no sign of the attacker, but the stable boy was still standing there, mouth open, clinging to the pitchfork.

”Run,” Anduin gasped, hand waving.

He realized that his vision was swimming. When he called to the Light, it answered, but in a slow, sluggish stream that did nothing to soothe the burning ache in his neck. The moonlit shapes suddenly went dark and when Anduin took a breath, he drew in rough cloth from the sack he realized was now covering his head.

“NO!”

Anduin’s shout rang out amongst the stalls as he was knocked off his feet.

More yelling and the sound of heavy footsteps clashed with the noise and vibrations from Reverence’s hooves thudding on the ground. Anduin struggled against the feeling of increasing weight pinning him down, light and shadow prayers alike going unanswered on his lips, head swimming from the lack of fresh air. He heard the sound of manacles and felt his wrists bolted to each other behind the small of his back: multiple pairs of hands pinned his legs to the ground as his ankles were similarly fastened. His muffled shouts went unacknowledged as he was hoisted up and dragged off, Reverence’s increasingly distressed noises fading away behind him.

* * *

Genn trudged through the dark corridors in Stormwind Keep, the heavy tails of his leather greatcoat swaying in his wake with each step. The rays of light from the breaking dawn cast a cool, pale glow over the wooden doors to the former king’s parlor as the old wolf placed his gloved hands on the ornate golden handles and pushed them open. The parlor was more or less as pristine as it had always been. Only the corner of the rug spread across the hardwood floor beneath the guest sofas was upturned, which Genn nudged back in place with the toe of his boot.

He took his time circling the room, pausing to inhale deeply every foot or so, as the sunlight continued to intensify. His arms were folded over his chest and chin tucked in to contemplate the ground. He took one step. Inhale. Exhale. And then another. Inhale.

Approaching footsteps and a new scent in the corridor made him pause. He looked to the door, moments before the head of Anduin’s household, Byron Walker, stepped through the doors, closing them behind him.

“King Greymane,” Byron greeted the Gilnean king with a deep, formal bow. The man was Anduin’s choice from the list of replacements the former servant, Wyll Benton, left before his death. A much younger man than Wyll, although still an entire decade older than Anduin, from a good family with a long lineage from Elwynn Forest.

“What is the state of the Keep?” Greymane asked, unmoved.

“Calm, Your Majesty,” Byron clasped his hands behind his back as he spoke. “The staff who have arrived or awakened were told that the king is confined to his bedchamber with a cold and were given instruction not to enter. Only one witnessed the arrest, a young stable boy. He’s been confined to his room in the servants’ quarters.”

“You didn’t send him home?”

Bryon looked somewhat surprised at the suggestion. “Your Majesty, forgive me, his home is Stormwind Keep. I believe his mother was lost on deployment during the Siege of Boralus, his father in some older war. I thought it best to contain him, for now, so he would not spread rumors.”

Something akin to a grimace crossed Genn’s face and he clenched his fingers, arms still folded across his breast.

“I see,” he said after a moment. “Good work.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Greymane resumed his meandering path. It took him into the bedchamber, which was in far worse shape than the parlor. Here, it was clear that something had gone amiss. The bed was unmade and both the doors to the bathroom and from the parlor itself were torn from their hinges. Fresh air drifted in through the open window in the bathroom, puffing at the delicate white curtains. Genn paused by the dresser, taking in another deep breath through his nose. He stared at one of the drawers.

“I’ve left everything in the room untouched,” Byron explained, trailing a respectful distance behind the king. “I suspect that SI:7 will want to inspect the premises for signs of the dragon’s influence. There could be any number of talismans hiding or enchantments on the High King’s possessions.”

Genn was half-listening. His fingers stretched forward, reaching for the drawer handle, when he happened to glance up. He flinched at what he saw. In the shadows of the dawn, the oil painted brush strokes that composed Tiffin Wrynn’s face made the queen mother seem as if she were staring right at Genn, breathless and unblinking, through a window from the opposite side of the wall. One hand rested between the small shoulders of an infant Anduin as he lay asleep and peaceful on her shoulder, his small hand curled near his mouth.

“Let’s keep the room as it is,” Genn said, tearing his gaze back toward the red-haired servant. “Lock the doors. You have your instructions for how to direct the staff if the dragon approaches the Keep.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Genn made his way out of the living quarters, exiting through the throne room and down the long corridor to the outer steps of the grand pavilion at the Keep’s gates, where his horse was waiting for him. His eyes tracked the sky as he eased into the saddle.

All was quiet on the streets of Stormwind as Greymane guided his horse down the road, listening to the sound of gentle waves lapping at the banks of the canals. The smell of warm bread and sweet spices wafted from the shops where bakers had long been awake and preparing their dough for the morning crowds. There were more guards than usual interspersed between street corners, but not so much as to incite suspicion and panic once the citizenry started to wake up in full.

Genn guided his horse around the back of the Cathedral of Light, leaving the reins with a member of his Greyguard stationed outside. He entered through the rear door that was seldom used by churchgoers to find the cathedral halls bustling with activity, an almost alarming change compared to the peace and calm outside. The chapels behind the main room had been converted into a makeshift infirmary during the War of Thorns. It started its use as an overflow for refugees from the former kaldorei capital of Darnassus and over the course of the war, morphed into a general purpose hospital for the poor. Priests were now carrying wounded patients from those wards down the stairs into the catacombs. Genn moved around the frantic flow of bodies, exchanging nods and acknowledging bows from the occupied priests who had their hands full with stretchers and medical supplies. Some were standing and holding religious texts, from which they were singing hymns to erect holy wards around the entire cathedral.

At last, Genn spotted the familiar shape of an older woman, even bent as she was over a patient lying one of the beds at the rear of the infirmary, she held herself with well-practiced poise. Her dress appeared simple enough at first glance, fine cloth slightly mussed, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, mostly obscured by an apron fastened tight across the front. However, the style betrayed a sophistication that only a matron of a noble family could afford, as well as the wedding rings on her left hand.

Genn waited until the woman and the priest had finished hoisting the injured night elf onto a gurney. When he spoke, he kept his voice just present enough to be heard above the echoing din in the chapel.

“Mia.”

The woman looked over her shoulder, mouth set in a thin line and face betraying no emotion. She looked back to the priest, who, with a nod, wheeled the gurney away by herself. Mia stepped forward to take Genn’s hands and deliver a quick, routine kiss in acknowledgement. His hands were instantly released as she turned right around to assist another priest with the patient in the neighboring bed.

“I came to ask one last time if you would reconsider—“

“My work is here,” Mia interrupted, checking that the needle of an intravenous drip was secure within the patient’s arm vein. “If Stormwind falls under dragon fire, I will die in this basement, amongst the priests of the Holy Light and our patients, not shivering on an embroidered ottoman in the Keep.”

“It will not come to that,” Genn said. It could not come to that. He watched as Mia repeated the process of lifting and moving the patient, helped by the priest who had returned with an empty gurney. “Where is Tess?”

Mia looked up, wiping her hands on her apron before she let her palms settle on her hips while the priest once again wheeled the patient away. Husband and wife exchanged stares for a brief moment, the bustle around them quieting. The chapel was now mostly empty.

“Where do you think Tess is?” Mia asked.

The old king looked away. His wife’s face softened. She reached up and laid a warm hand on his elbow. 

“Be safe, Genn,” she said.

* * *

Many hours later found Genn on his horse again, this time galloping to the city gates beneath the afternoon sun. Triple the amount of guards were stationed, bearing both Stormwind and Gilnean colors, in formation between the statues of heroes lining the cobblestone bridge, where they had been standing for the better part of the morning.

At the head of the formation stood General Hammond Clay, who directed a sharp salute as Greymane rode up beside him.

“What’s going on?” Greymane all but barked, his horse snorting and shaking his head in response to the frustration in his voice.

“I don’t know sir,” Clay said. “There’s been no sign of him on the road.”

”What do you mean there’s been no sign of him?” Greymane’s voice was rising, but in that moment he did not feel charitable enough to hold back his temper. “How difficult can it be to spot a dragon on the road? He’s on his way from the mountains, yes?”

“I’m not sure, sir,” Clay continued, visibly unperturbed to his credit, although his brow was shining with sweat.

Genn was about to let loose a string of stern reprimands when a prickling on the back of his neck made him swallow his bitter words and turn around. A dark, tall figure now stood three feet from where they waited, patiently, for someone to take notice of them. Twin glowing yellow eyes looked back from a violet face, the long ears almost like horns. Thus noticed, Rell Nightwind stepped forward, boots making no sound as he moved with the elegance of a rogue.

“What is your report?” Genn asked.

“We have the white pawn still sedated and in SI:7 custody,” Nightwind said. “We are not equipped to hold him long-term and would like to move him to the stockades as soon as possible.”

Genn tried to push an image of Anduin, struggling against the effects of the mind-numbing potion and in chains, from his mind.

“Keep him wherever you have him,” Genn said. “I do not want to risk starting a panic before we have that dragon under control.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Rell’s voice, though emotionless, still carried the infuriating kaldorei inflection that rode the line between tranquility and sarcasm. It made Genn’s already heated blood boil.

“Reports are that there’s been no sign of the dragon,” he growled, as if Rell had not just overheard said report from whatever shadow he had approached from. “How is Stormwind Intelligence making itself useful?”

“SI:7 is doing the best that it can to determine the dragon’s current whereabouts,” Rell continued, smooth and unperturbed as ever. “Agents are on the ground tracing the suspected path, but the speed of information slows in proportion to the distance they travel away from the city.”

Genn glared at the dirt road leading into the boughs of the forest. “Where the hell is he?”

* * *

Wrathion was standing at the crossroads of two perpendicular roads, joined just at the outskirts of Goldshire. He fingered a loose thread in his shirt as he contemplated his situation. He was, for once, early. Hot, dusty, quite tired, but early. The mid-afternoon sun blazed hot over the dazzling green canopy of Elwynn Forest. Late summer was in full swing, bringing fresh bounties of berries, peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes to the stalls of the farmer’s market amidst unbearable, stifling heat. The persistent sound of cicadas filled his head. The Black Prince’s mortal body was at its limits, having forgone food and drink in his haste to take advantage of the day. He was struggling against shooting pain in his calves and what was surely an annoying callous that had developed on the heel of his foot. Rest and pacing had never been his forte, and he somehow hadn’t gotten the knack of managing it until the limits of his mortal form forced it upon him.

Massaging the thread with his fingers, Wrathion swallowed against his dry throat and contemplated if he should take advantage of the time to freshen up. It had come undone sometime before his meeting with the Horde Council and had been bothering him ever since. Anduin, of course, would never notice, but the king only put as little thought toward fashion as he could afford to get away with given his station.

It was the thirst, he realized, that was getting to him. He was contemplating whether or not he should sew the thread back in place over a cool glass of water or just use a quick patch enchantment and be done with it, when the sound of his name commanded his attention.

“Prince Wrathion of the Black Dragonflight.”

Wrathion turned, eyes widening ever so slightly in shock and a hint of genuine fear.

* * *

Lord Admiral Jaina Proudmoore stood on the shore of a beach just outside of Boralus. The soles of her light boots sank into the wet, gray sand as the low tide broke inches away from the tips of her toes. She took a deep breath of the salty air, relishing the sensation of it sighing over her skin and whipping silver and blonde strands from their loose braid. She was dressed in a thin, short-sleeved summer tunic and light breeches, the fabrics doing little to stop the early morning breeze from cutting through as she looked out over the ocean reflecting the white light from the morning sun. She had not worn the outfit in quite some time. It came from the bottom of a trunk, taking several enchantments and an iron with elbow grease to smooth out the wrinkles. It was tailored in the southern region of the Eastern Kingdoms, where she intended to be as soon as she worked up the nerve to draw the portal.

Months stood between the present day and her last visit to Stormwind. As ruler of Kul Tiras and commander of Her fleets, Jaina’s duties were more than enough to keep her hands full, even with her mother by her side as an advisor. On top of that, she was helping with the efforts to stay the flow of azerite from the sleeping Titan’s wounds that cut across the islands.

She had hoped to see Anduin more, which was her intention when she bade him to rebind the hearthstone she had gifted him years ago to her new parlor in Proudmoore Keep. But the number of times the young king sat before her new hearth were too few and far between. When he did, his cheerful face was undercut by ever deepening worry lines in his brow and shadows beneath his eyes, their once carefree talks now overcast by anxiety about the state of the kingdom. She knew the cold, damp climate in Tiragarde Sound was also uncomfortable for Anduin, though he never once complained of it. No matter the season, Jaina made sure to set a strong fire roaring in the hearth for him during his rare visits. She also drew small fire runes on her mugs so that Anduin could cradle a hot cup of tea or coffee in his aching hands while they talked, the charms ensuring that the drink never cooled to room temperature.

The weather alone could not deter Anduin from visiting his aunt, though. The Lord Admiral’s schedule was slight in comparison to the routine demanded of one who stood as both the High King of Stormwind and the leader of the Alliance. The Noble Houses of Kul Tiras were not only fewer but far more independent than the ones that crowded Stormwind. The Kul Tiran nobles were also more familiar with each other; the great losses they suffered during and after the Third War had the cursed benefit of creating practiced camaraderie in times of grief and suffering. Despite the recent troubles that kept their houses separate for so long, once united, the Kul Tirans were more or less aligned in their goals. A noble family on the northern tip of Stormsong Valley didn’t have much differences in their troubles than one in the southern forests of Drustvar. Anduin needed to somehow keep every noble family across the span of the entire Eastern Kingdoms happy on top of his duties to the Alliance. Kul Tiras had also, for the most part, absorbed the shock of the Fourth War. Her people were hardy and used to taking times of peace to prepare and stock rather than relax.

There was another reason, though: the main reason why Jaina Proudmoore hesitated to visit the king. The memory of it made her chest burn in shame, but she allowed herself, at last, to wallow, facing the uncomfortable emotion head-on as she stood on the beach that morning, glaring at the ocean.

It all started when, on a whim, Jaina had planned a surprise visit to Stormwind, wanting to dote on her nephew before Winter’s Veil. It was an early weekend day with most of the staff resting off duty when she stepped foot in the Keep. She received word that Anduin was last seen making his way to the library and followed the servant’s directions to the adjoining corridor. The archmage happened to catch the sound of the young king’s laughter, hushed and carried by the echoing white stone walls, which she followed. Turning onto the pavilion, she froze at the sight of Anduin half-sitting against a railing that overlooked the hibernating garden, his golden hair haloed with cold winter sunlight as he shared a long kiss with Magni Bronzebeard’s advisor from Silithus.

Jaina was sure it was him. The black dragon’s back was to her, displaying the elaborate pattern of ebony scales sewn across the shoulder-blades of his long jacket. The faint traces of red smoke emitting from the sides of his head were unmistakable. His uncovered hands were cradling Anduin’s neck. The young king had his own pale, chapped hands laying across either side of the red sash adorning the dragon’s waist. The kiss broke and Anduin pulled away, face revealed to her in full. 

That was when the paralyzing shock flipped to embarrassment as the weight of the scene crashed into her. With a quick gesture, Jaina cast an invisibility spell. A blink carried her far enough away where her retreating footsteps could not be heard by either of the two entwined men.

The shame from spying and the difficulty of processing the sheer amount of new information revealed about her adopted nephew made her so uncomfortable that she nearly ported right back to Boralus then and there. Only the fact that her presences was already catalogued by numerous guards and servants kept her waiting with clasped hands over her crossed knees in the Keep’s receiving room. Jaina couldn’t think of how she would explain her sudden departure when news reached Anduin that his aunt had popped in and out for an unknown visit. _Forgive me, Anduin, I simply didn’t want to…interrupt…_

When Anduin did greet her, cheeks pinker than usual but his welcoming embrace no less honest, she was certain that he remained unaware of her transgression. He seemed too casual and at ease during the subsequent conversation in his parlor over black tea and glazed winter spice cakes. Jaina just couldn’t bring herself to broach the subject, although the Black Prince’s name sat thick like stuck honey at the back of her tongue for the duration. Courtship was a topic that she made a point of never bringing up with Anduin. She understood the pressure that he was under. Every noble affiliated with Stormwind with a daughter capable of bearing children had their eye fixated on the King of Stormwind’s meager social calendar. He deserved to have at least one person in his life who wasn’t peppering their conversations with personal questions of that nature. Jaina trusted that Anduin would confide in her when he was ready for her council on the matter.

Or, at least, that was what she had once told herself to justify her silence.

Jaina could understand keeping his sexual preferences hidden from the kingdom, the Church, even those in his inner circle of the closest thing he had to friends and adopted family. But, over the years, Jaina Proudmoore had tried to build her hearth so that Anduin could have at least one place in the world where he could go to put down his burdens, first of being Crown Prince and then as High King. She hoped that at least with her, he could feel free to be himself as he was and not as what the kingdom wanted him to be.

The fact that she had utterly failed in this was devastating. It hurt to think that Anduin did not trust her as much as she thought he did. At worse he feared her judgement. The cherished trust between them now seemed far too delicate.

Unable to bring herself to talk to Anduin, Jaina’s thoughts often turned to the Black Prince. She had seen him only from a distance on the Timeless Isle. He seemed smaller back then. In recollection, he was shielded with layers of white silk and dragon scale armor, glaring at the world from under the brim of his turban. To her surprise, every single memory of the Black Prince that she managed to dredge up was accompanied by one of Anduin, leaning on his cane, never far from his side.

Jaina could have kicked herself for not seeing it sooner. In those days, when Anduin wasn’t with his father or occupied with his duties at Garrosh’s trial, he could be found at the Black Prince’s campsite, resting his legs while he and the dragon engaged in spirited debate over a board game or cards. The snippets of conversation she had caught between them were heated with banter that she mistook for an adversarial friendship. She and Kalecgos had spent many nights engaged in the same kind of talks while sharing a bottle of mana-infused wine.

She should have _known_. But, back then, all of her thoughts had been tainted with grief and rage. The Pandaren were very wise, but she did not listen to their lessons, which taught that anger had a way of pushing all other emotions out.

Since Jaina had seen Anduin holding the Black Prince in his arms, she could not shake the impulse to speak with the dragon. She loathed to think of what would come of it. Above all else, she despised the idea of invading Anduin’s privacy any more that she already had. He had precious little to begin with as king. Furthermore, any attention that she gave to the dragon might be enough to destroy what little shield they had built to protect themselves from the kingdom’s prying eyes. She couldn’t help but wonder, though, if Anduin and the dragon were careless enough to steal a kiss in the hallway, what other risks were they taking? She had to let one of them know what she had seen, if not to ease her own conscience then to ensure they would take more precaution in the future, for Anduin’s sake at the very least.

Something else was also weighing on Jaina’s mind. She’d heard countless horror stories of mortal consorts injured by accident at the hands of careless dragon partners, even endured a few scrapes and burns herself. She had to make sure that if Anduin was courting a younger, inexperienced dragon, that this dragon was taking care. It was a protective impulse, a dangerous one, that she knew had the potential to push Anduin further away if she did not handle the situation with grace. But was it even possible to have a respectful conversation with your adopted nephew’s secret dragon lover, when your nephew was both an autonomous adult, not to mention High King, and your intent was to give unsolicited advice on the physical and social dangers of their lovemaking?

Despite her trepidation, Jaina made up her mind to speak with him. She procured his schedule and marked the date of his next visit to Stormwind.

Hesitation took hold, even now standing at the edge of the beach on the designated date of arrival. One final thought of Anduin, sore and covered in black bruises, hiding gashes and burns beneath his fine silk sleeves and coat collar, at last made her draw the slender mage’s sword that she had long traded her staff for. She lifted her hand to begin the conjure that would open a portal to Goldshire.

* * *

Jaina stepped through the arcane tear and was met with a hot wall of muggy air. Despite her efforts, she had not dressed appropriately. Kul Tiras’ cold, damp weather had spoiled her. It was too late to do anything about it now, though. She did not know the exact time of the Black Prince’s arrival, only that he was sure to pass through Goldshire to refresh himself before making the final leg of the journey to Stormwind City.

While she waited, Jaina perused the Goldshire farmer’s market, dropping coin where she could. She used frost spells to refill the ice in each farmer’s box and accepted a small snack of chilled green beans and cubed melon as thanks, which she took to eat under the shade of an apple tree. Goldshire was bustling with activity at this time of day, but the people and travelers were lethargic, conserving their energy to survive the temperature and avoid blowing around more hot air than necessary. In response to the pleading of a group of children who were drawn by rumors of a visiting mage, Jaina summoned a water elemental to spray a gentle mist over the grassy lawn outside the inn.

At last, Jaina caught a whisper of “ _did you see the dragon?_ ” and hurried to her feet, dispelling the water elemental to a small chorus of complaints. It didn’t take long to spot the familiar mortal form, drawn to the farmer’s delicacies as she had been an hour ago. Jaina approached from behind, seeing him much like she had on that day with Anduin. He looked less mysterious underneath the bright Goldshire sun than he had in the cold winter shadows of the Keep. He was without his coat, wearing a white blouse embroidered with gold thread at the sleeves.

Jaina cleared her throat.

“Prince Wrathion of the Black Dragonflight,” she called.

The mortal form whipped around, silk and leather rustling, dark hair spilling over his shoulder. His red eyes widened in recognition.

“Lord Admiral Proudmoore,” Wrathion said, his voice smooth as he bowed. Jaina returned a nod in kind. “It is a surprise and a delight to meet you so far inland.”

“Likewise,” Jaina replied without hesitation, chin tipping up to meet him square in the eye. “Might I hazard a guess as to your destination? Stormwind City, to meet with King Anduin?”

Wrathion’s mouth curled upward, into a smile that betrayed little warmth. “That is, indeed, my destination, Admiral Proudmoore, although, if I were capable of summoning my own portals, I would not be standing here courting flies in Goldshire.”

They stood for a moment, eyeing each other, as patrons stepped around them to visit the vegetable stalls. Jaina took a deep breath.

“I would like to buy you a drink,” she said.

Wrathion’s brows arched, his stern expression cracking. “I…beg your pardon…?”

“A drink,” Jaina repeated, loud enough to draw stares. “Unless you mean to tell me that dragons cannot appreciate mortal alcohol?”

“My Lord, I wouldn’t dream of making such an outlandish claim,” Wrathion replied, folding his arms across his chest in a protective gesture. “But surely the Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras has better places to be than sweating in a bar with a dragon?”

“This particular Lord Admiral does not, Black Prince.”

Wrathion’s hand rose to meet his chin. He stroked his beard as his red eyes continued to bore into hers. Jaina did not look away, skin crawling as if he were divining her thoughts through her pupils.

“I’m afraid you find me in a bit of a rush,” the dragon said, at last, voice slow and smooth through the heat. “The king’s time is precious and I’m loath to keep him waiting.”

Jaina managed not to wince. She would be forced to show a bit of her hand to stop the dragon’s retreat.

“Well, if you could spare an hour,” she pressed before Wrathion could take the opportunity to bow out. “I’m sure you know that Anduin is patient and kind. He would forgive the delay, especially if you were to mention that his persistent aunt was the one who captured your time.”

The glowing irises flickered, their expression unreadable to Jaina, who had long forgotten how to discern respect from abhorrence in a dragon’s eyes.

“Very well,” Wrathion said at last, tucking his hand into his elbow once again as he cocked his chin and renewed his terse smile. “It would be an honor to accept a drink from you, my Lord.”

Jaina dipped her chin in acknowledgement and turned on her heels, beckoning with a hand. “Let’s go into the Lion’s Pride, their dining hall has an excellent selection.”

“I trust that it does.”

Music from within the inn could be heard from the steps of its porch, where a number of humans and dwarves had carried their drinks to listen through the open windows. The reason for the deck crowd became apparent as soon as Jaina stepped inside. The interior dining hall was a sweatbox, the walls trapping the combined heat from both the sun streaming in through the dull windows and the bodies of the patrons who had tried to relieve themselves from the sun by venturing indoors. Jaina worked her way through the crowd, glancing over her shoulder to make sure that Wrathion was trailing after her. He was drawing the attention of most drinkers, if not for the extra heat radiating from his limbs, then the glow of his red eyes, more noticeable in the shade of the dark interior. Men who did not bother to move to let her pass stepped aside to give Wrathion a wide berth.

Jaina reached the bar, jutting her elbow in-between a mountainous draenei and a dwarf to draw the attention of the woman working behind the counter. Like everyone else, the bartender had a thin sheen of sweat across her flushed face, wisps of her brown hair that had escaped its loose bun plastered to her temples. Jaina shouted above the din, describing what she wanted to do, holding up the enchanted off-hand scepter she wielded to accompany her sword. The woman’s face lit up at the sight of the mage’s instrument and she nodded enthusiastically, gesticulating with her calloused, slender hands. She curled her fingers and jerked her hand so that the thumb pointed to the row of taps behind her, raising a questioning brow.

Jaina leaned back from the bar. She found herself almost face-to-face with Wrathion, who was pressed in close thanks to the packed cluster of bodies seeking cool refreshment. Jaina asked Wrathion a question. The Black Prince’s brows furrowed and he raised a long hand to tuck his hair behind one ear, exposing a gold hoop earring that caught the dust-sprinkled sunlight.

“Pardon me?” he shouted. 

“I said ‘what would you like to drink’?” Jaina yelled back.

“I’ll have whatever is good enough for the Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras.”

Jaina flushed, unsure if she should interpret this as a compliment or an insult. Perhaps both. She ordered two beers from the first tap label that her eyes landed on and set to work while the barmaid poured. Jaina took a tentative step back, Wrathion bending like a willow branch to accommodate her. She raised one hand to the ceiling, the other cupping around the hilt of her sword. The air around her hair cooled, sending a fresh blast across her now grease-coated face. A confused noise rippled through the crowd as the chill spread across the room. The murmur gave way to roaring cheers and applause as Jaina sent two crystalline frost orbs toward opposite ends of the ceiling. They drove a frosty breeze to and fro and the air in the bar started to cool.

“There you are, my dearest mage,” the barmaid called as she slid the mugs across the slick counter. “This round is on the house.”

Jaina smiled, blushing from the sincerity behind the compliment, and dipped her chin in a gesture of mutual thanks. When she turned around, she caught Wrathion squinting at the frost spell in curiosity as if he were studying it.

“Let’s find somewhere to sit,” Jaina yelled.

They didn’t have to look for long; the crowd was now in Jaina’s favor and a pair of seats opened up as they approached the end of a long table. The archmage took one, raising her hand to tuck a loose lock of silver hair behind her ear. As she did so, she murmured another spell. Wrathion’s red eyes flitted back and forth as he watched the near invisible shield envelop them. It swallowed some of the noise, in both directions.

“Just a little privacy,” Jaina said with a shrug under Wrathion’s suspicious stare.

The dragon looked as if he were going to say something, but his mouth closed and he took a seat opposite her. He removed his black leather gloves and rolled his crisp white shirt sleeves up above his bony elbows. Jaina stared at a strange, thick scar that wrapped all the way round his right wrist. She felt warmth rise to her cheeks when she realized Wrathion noticed. He made no move to hide his hand, though, taking the handle of the tankard instead and raising it in a toast.

“To your magnificent frost magic,” he said.

Jaina drew her own mug and clinked it against his with a little more force than she had intended. Foam from the beer heads sloshed over the rim, dribbling down the thick glass sides. 

They each took a succession of long gulps, avoiding the other’s eyes. Jaina ran over the prepared statement in her mind: _Black Prince, I don’t mean to pry, but there is an urgent matter of a personal nature I would like to respectfully discuss…_

“How goes the restoration effort in Silithus?” Jaina blurted, her bright and forced voice cracking under its thick coating of beer.

Wrathion raised his shoulders in a slight shrug, eyes lidded with indifference. “Quite slowly, I’m afraid.”

Jaina waited in vain for the dragon to elaborate, scraping a fingernail over the fabric covering her thigh. _I am concerned that you are not taking proper precautions with my nephew._

“The Black Dragonflight’s power stems from an ancient branch of shamanism, correct?” she probed. _I only happened to stumble across this information, but I am concerned that you and Anduin aren’t acting with the kind of discretion that you should._

“Our roots originate from within the earth,” Wrathion said, after taking a moment to consider. “I suppose one could say that my flight has more in common with the shamans of Azeroth than we do with any other family of magic.”

“Kul Tiras also has a proud history of shamanism,” Jaina continued. _Please, do not misinterpret my concern for disapproval._ “The tidesages derive most of their texts from ancient recitations similar in spirit to the ones passed down by the Wildhammer clan.”

Wrathion appeared to be studying the dark, amber beer in his tankard. His fingers were clenched around the handle and he tilted the container so that the contents swirled around and around within the confines of the brim. To keep from staring at his wrist, Jaina turned her attention toward the white rose pinned to his left breast pocket. The petals shimmered with a subtle time dilation enchantment that kept the blossom from wilting.

“I would expect that Kul Tiran born shamans would be acutely attuned to water,” the dragon offered, at last. “Currents, rainfall and the like.”

“Oh, yes,” Jaina replied with a nod as she took a generous drink of her own beer. _I am grateful that Anduin has found someone with whom he can share companionship and comfort._ “Our navy has thrived thanks to the expertise of the shamans among our ranks, crew and shipbuilders alike.”

“Yes, I’ve heard a great deal about the skills of Kul Tiran sailors,” Wrathion’s gaze flicked up. “As I understand it, the newest ship in Stormwind’s navy originates from your shipyards?”

“Yes, the one helmed by my brother, Tandred,” Jaina said. _I am truly sorry to corner you like this, but I could think of no other way to broach the subject._ “It was a gift, from Kul Tiras to King Anduin, as thanks for welcoming our nation into the Alliance.”

Wrathion nodded. “It is a beautiful vessel. It bore bits of N’zoth’s carcass on our return home from Ny’alotha.”

_From the bottom of my heart, Wrathion, I wish to welcome you warmly into my nephew’s life._

“O-oh,” Jaina stuttered, her inner monologue shattered at the image of her country’s cherished gift stained with the rotting blood of an Old God. “I…forgive me, but that sounds quite dangerous.”

Wrathion arched a heavy eyebrow.

“That’s an awful lot of viscera,” Jaina continued. “How on earth did you keep the corruption from permanently staining the woodwork?”

Wrathion traced the rim of his tankard with a nail. “Well, as I’m sure one familiar with shamanism would know, wood has an innate resistance to Void energies. To form a protective seal between any piece of wood and a corrupted object, one simply has to tap into these properties…”

As they went back and forth, quizzing the other about the properties of matter and the differences between their schools of magic, one beer turned into two turned into five. Dragons could hold their alcohol, Jaina knew, but so could Kul Tirans.

“Enough about Kul Tiras, what kind of studies keep the Black Dragonflight preoccupied these days?” Jaina asked, after a while. She was sitting taller in her seat, winding a finger around her braid. Wrathion was leaning forward, resting his chin on the palm of his propped hand.

“Dragon eggs,” he replied.

“Eggs?”

“Yes, indeed, corrupted ones,” Wrathion took a fresh beer offered by the barmaid, who seemed to always be aware of when they were one sip away from polishing off their steins. “There are fossilized, fertilized dragon eggs in Neltharion’s Lair, ancient, but preserved. You know of my brother?”

Jaina frowned. “…the one from Highmountain?”

“The very one,” Wrathion said after a fresh gulp, pointing at Jaina. “Ebyssian is proof that it is possible to recover a healthy, pure dragon of the earth from one of Neltharion’s tainted brood. The Hammer of Khaz'goroth is now beyond our reach, but perhaps another Titan artifact could cleans the tainted kiss of the Old Gods from those unborn children.”

Jaina frowned, tilting her head. “Forgive me, but I do not understand. Even if you were to remove the corruption…how…if they’re fossilized…”

“How would we restart the incubation process?” Wrathion interrupted, placing his glass with heft upon the table. “A very good question. You must keep in mind that dragon eggs are not like living things. Once fertilized, the embryo may remain that way for centuries. Draconic incubation is a curious thing, and it can be started again at any time. It merely requires the presence of heat.”

“Heat?”

“An incredible amount of the most insufferable heat,” Wrathion’s red eyes seemed to flare a fraction brighter. “Lethal to most living creatures, but a comfort to fire elementals. The kind of heat one can only find within a volcano.”

“…such as Blackrock Mountain,” Jaina finished.

A fleeting ghost of a smile flickered across the Black Prince’s face, quickly hid behind another drink.

“It would be a miracle if you were to pull it off,” Jaina mused.

Wrathion shrugged. “Stranger things have happened in the history of my flight. But, enough of this depressing talk of dormant dragon eggs. It makes for a rather poor topic of conversation to have with pleasant company over good beer.”

“Shall we talk about the weather, instead, then?” Jaina asked, rubbing her brow. “I tire too easily of trivial conversations.”

“Oh? Do they not have much else to talk about over drinks in Kul Tiras other than the weather?” Wrathion asked, his voice teasing. “Well, allow me to seize the opportunity to ask you about something that has been pricking the back of my mind for some time now.”

Jaina leaned back, tipping her chair onto its rear legs as she kicked up her boots to rest comfortably on the empty seat next to Wrathion’s.

“Please do,” she said with a lazy flick of her wrist.

Wrathion smirked at the gesture, leaning in closer over his elbow, preparing to betray a secret. “Magni Bronzebeard spoke of a council in Kul Tiras, whose members oversee the efforts to heal the wounds in the area about and surrounding the islands. Perhaps not unlike these tidesages that you mentioned?”

“Yes,” Jaina gave an enthusiastic nod. “The, ah, Council of Azerite Deposition, as it was named, I believe.”

”A fine name,” the Black Prince declared with a dignified nod, his eyes darkening somewhat. “Rumor has it that your council employs…interesting tactics.”

“Oh,” Jaina held back a belch, blushing as she waved her hand to distract from the hiccup. “That, of course. Well, it’s a bit difficult to explain.”

“You have stolen my time from your dear nephew,” the Black Prince’s mouth curled into a genuine smile which he hid in the palm of his hand, his gaze growing distant. _He is thinking of Anduin,_ Jaina realized, her own face growing redder. “You ought to claim it while you can, Lord Admiral.”

Jaina took a deep breath.

“The wounds cut across all three of our islands,” she said, focusing on the minstrel band, still playing at the distant end of the banquet hall while she waved her hand in the air. “In addition to the damage done by the goblin, gnome, and Ashvane mining operations, there are natural cracks caused by earthquakes and tremors.”

“Azeroth cries out in pain,” Wrathion murmured into his fingers, his voice distant.

“Precisely,” Jaina stated. “Well, we’ve discovered that those…wounds…extend far beyond the shoreline. They run across the ocean floor.”

“Far deeper than most mortals have ever ventured before,” the Black Prince mused. “Quite a conundrum for your tidesages, I imagine.”

“It is,” Jaina admitted. “But, they’ve made progress. They are slowly mapping the terrain. They’ve discovered that the azerite rifts below the waves have changed the tides, which in turn are behind the recent changes in our nation’s climate.”

“I thought you did not want to speak of the weather?” Wrathion asked with a genuine laugh.

Jaina joined him. “Indeed, but, truth be told, the nobles of Kul Tiras can talk of nothing else during our monthly council meetings. Kul Tiran summers are normally short and cool, but the past three have been worryingly hot. The glaciers are smaller this year. The migration patterns of the fish have shifted.”

She paused, realizing that Wrathion had gone quite still, staring out the distant window, one arm thrown across the back of his chair. Sobriety kicked in as she feared she had at last worn his patience down, panicked that he would leave before she could risk bringing up the real purpose of this meeting.

“You must think I am a fool,” Jaina said.

Wrathion turned, and Jaina found his face had softened considerably from their first encounter in the market. When he looked at her now, it was with a shade of understanding. Or perhaps his own inebriation from the beer.

“I think you possess a fondness for the ways of the earth,” the dragon responded. “If I may be so bold, Lord Admiral. I do not understand how an archmage, former leader of the Kirin Tor, came to be so enamored with shaman magic.”

Jaina did not know what to say.

Before she had the chance to answer, a dwarf was at their table. He appeared to be shouting, his voice barely audible through the sound-dampening enchantment. Jaina made a sloppy gesture, and the absorption shield dropped.

“Oi, you’re a black dragon, aren’t ye?” he said. He was looking at Wrathion.

The Black Prince returned the look, eyes narrow with suspicion. “Indeed, that I am.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” the dwarf said, jerking a nod in both Jaina and Wrathion’s separate directions. “But there’s a fook ton of Alliance soldiers outside. They’ve got the whole place surrounded and the fellow in charge is demandin’ to speak to the ‘black dragon.’ I assume you’re the fooker he’s talkin’ about, seein’ as yer the only one here.”

Wrathion glanced at Jaina, who found herself staring with brows furrowed. Neither of them were doing a good job of processing the words that had come out of the dwarf’s mouth. Jaina took the opportunity to glance around the tavern. The din had quieted somewhat, the band had stopped playing, and more than an insignificant number of patrons were staring at them. Some were standing at the windows, straining to look outside over each other’s shoulders.

“Well, I suppose I should not keep them waiting,” Wrathion said, finally. He rose and gave a solemn bow in Jaina’s direction. “Please excuse me, Lord Admiral.”

Before Jaina could open her mouth to protest, the dragon was already gone, weaving his way through the crowd. Jaina was soon on her own feet and trailing after him, her head buzzing. She froze in the doorway, only a step behind where the Black Prince had settled on the porch. She remained hidden behind a small crowd of drinkers who had gathered to watch.

True to the dwarf’s word, there were, indeed, a significant number of Alliance soldiers surrounding the Lion’s Pride Inn. A sea of them, in fact, bearing standards of both Kul Tiras and Gilneas. The rows of silver pauldrons and helms glinted beneath the sun, blindingly so. Jaina had not seen so many soldiers, warriors, and mages assembled since the hottest days of the Fourth War.

“Prince Wrathion,” Jaina spotted Genn, surrounded by five members of his Greyguard and several mages, more or less at the center of the pack. “You are charged with conspiracy to infiltrate the throne of Stormwind by means of enchanting and seducing High King Anduin Llane Wrynn. You are hereby to surrender peacefully to the independent militia of Gilneas and Stormwind and submit to subsequent judgement by a tribunal of the Stormwind Noble Houses.”

No one made a sound. No one seemed to breathe.

Wrathion raised his hands, taking a step forward with one pointed, leather boot.

“Let us discuss—”

What happened next happened so quickly that Jaina, in all her years of training, could only just trace the path that the arcane device took through the air from the hands of the mages that threw it. The arc it made was unnatural in its precision and when it collided with Wrathion, it hit with such a force that it knocked him back off his feet. Before Jaina could detect what it was, a terrible scream broke from the Black Prince’s throat and he was moving, twisting sideways, no longer a man, but…

Jaina just barely managed to avoid being hit by the span of scales and sinewy tissue of the dragon’s wings as they burst forth from the massive, growing form. Part of the roof overhang fell down in a rain of shingles and splinters as the dragon rose up and staggered. Jaina threw up a shield just in time to protect her head and the heads of several drinkers around her. When she blinked the debris from her stinging eyes, half of the porch was missing, Wrathion nowhere to be seen. The crowd of moving soldiers told her the direction that she should run in. Her boots took her off the edge of the broken porch, over the grass, through the cluster of armored soldiers, who let her pass when they noticed who she was.

The soldiers stood in a ring around the dragon’s writhing body. Wrathion had come to a stop in the grass across the dirt road, next to the blacksmith’s shop. The dragon’s jaw struggled against the makeshift muzzle that clamped it shut, howls of pain and frustrated rage slipping through the gaps he managed to make between his jagged, arm-sized teeth. Plumes of thick, curling black smoke billowed from his nostrils, burdening the summer air with a volcanic scent. Waves of heat rippled out across the crowd from his charcoal scales. The soldiers barred more curious residents of Goldshire from drawing closer to the spectacle. 

Something was wrapped around the entire length of the dragon’s body in hastily drawn coils. It was most certainly arcane in nature, Jaina could see as she squinted from under the shadow of her raised palm, and it resonated with a mechanical frequency. Discharges of gold and blue sparks crackled across the spokes, falling to the dry, brown grass. _Azerite_ , Jaina realized. Quite a lot of it. An astounding amount. All of it empowering and enhancing the draconic suppression ward that bound Wrathion’s true form.

“Genn!” Jaina shouted, breaking through the ranks. She found herself standing three feet away from the hooves of the familiar iron grey steed. “Genn, please stop! There must be some mistake!”

Greymane turned. He saw her, eyes widening.

“Jaina,” he said, voice faltering. “What are you doing here?”

“Send a gryphon to Anduin at once,” Jaina commanded in her best Lord Admiral tone, wracking her brains to try and remember where House Greymane stood in the hierarchy of Nobles compared to House Proudmoore and whether or not it was affected by international borders. Wrathion had, miraculously, fallen still at the sound of her voice to listen. “Surely Magni’s emissary deserves more respect than this?”

“Anduin Wrynn has been relieved of his position as High King of Stormwind,” Genn retorted. His face had hardened into that of a stranger’s.

Jaina felt her heart stop.

“On what grounds?” she barked.

“On the grounds that he has been bewitched by some kind of draconic magic,” Genn spat back, drawing his reins as his horse shuffled her hooves, spooked by the spike in his temper. “The king is a danger to both the Alliance and to himself. He is not currently fit to sit on the throne.”

There were few situations strange and surreal enough to catch Jaina Proudmoore off guard. Now was one of those times. The ground seemed to reel as the weight of Greymane’s words settled into her conscious mind. The shock on her face must have been evident, for Greymane’s face softened.

“Jaina, please stand back,” he said, extending a gloved hand. “Come back with us to Stormwind, I will expl—”

The noise that tore from Wrathion’s throat was so loud and terrible that it drew panicked screams from the citizens and caused many soldiers to draw their swords. Jaina felt the familiar tingle of arcane energies draw into focus as the battle mages prepared attack spells. In the chaos, she almost missed the tremble in the earth beneath her feet, so subtle she could have imagined it. But the dirt in the road, just before Wrathion’s bound claws, held a substantial crack that had not been there moments before.

Jaina looked at Genn. She looked at the dragon.

Time seemed to slow as the memory of the secret moment she had witnessed in the corridor returned. This time, all she could remember was Anduin. She remembered the sight of him on that winter day, when he pulled back from the kiss, gazing at the dragon who now lay struggling in the grass before her. She remembered the shy, genuine smile that melted the worry-lines away from his haggard, pale face. He did not look bewitched. He looked, for the first time in years, unburdened and happy.

The amount of arcane power Jaina Proudmoore drew to summon a portal at the center of Wrathion’s body was enough to cause air around her to dip, drawing the attention of every attuned mage and petty conjurer within the entire town of Goldshire. The dragon disappeared in an instant, leaving exposed the crackling oval rift. In the next instant, Jaina’s body shimmered as spacetime bent toward her. In the blink of an eye she was at the portal and all it took was a single step to pass through as behind her, she heard Genn’s order overlaid with the noise of hundreds of armored footsteps and the sound of a single, lone mage: 

“NO, WAIT…!”

Jaina’s body plummeted toward the ground in a haze of violent pink arcane smog, moments behind Wrathion’s similarly tumbling form. The broken, jagged ground in the Hillsbrad Foothills that once held the capital city of Dalaran rushed up toward them. Through the wind battering her face, Jaina aimed her finger, and with the mana and arcane power saturated in the ruins, drew a second instant cast. A portal opened up beneath Wrathion just moments before his body would have been impaled on the rusting, broken sewer pipes jutting out of the rocks. His form disappeared and she used discharges of arcane gravity wells to push and pull her body, breath catching in her throat, trying to center her much smaller form so that she, too, would hit the portal…

She slipped through; the momentum from the fall sent her hurtling sideways in the air above Theramore Isle. The salt air stung her cheeks as she twirled, throwing her hands out to stabilize herself when she spotted Wrathion taking a far steeper fall toward the ruins below. As Jaina’s body continued to descend farther and farther away, she calculated the trajectory of Wrathion’s path, predicting where he would be within the next several seconds. The remnants of arcana in the ruins below answered her call and a portal opened beneath the dragon, taking him through.

Addressing the second problem, Jaina froze the misty air beneath her and landed onto the new surface, the world spinning around her as her eardrums struggled to find equilibrium. Out of the corner of her eye, Jaina spotted twenty mages taking similar paths from the portal she had opened, still humming high in the air, difficult to see under the sun. None of the foot soldiers who’d rushed in immediately had survived this far into the journey. She raised a shield to deflect the volley of bursts thrown in her direction when the mages found purchase on some artificial surface they created for themselves. She swirled the shield around her as she stepped into open air, a fresh ice shelf spreading to meet the soles of her boot, cracking only just slightly beneath her weight. She took a second step, then another, and another until she found a rhythm and ran, leaving a trail of fragile ice stairs behind her as she descended towards the portal.

A frostbolt broke through her shield, piercing her arm and almost throwing her off balance. She whipped around and resumed her run at a slower clip, backwards. Three of the mages had come quite close, a purple trail of arcane rushing toward her. The ruins groaned beneath them, stones rising into the air as the old arcane particles reactivated and were drawn to the fresh, untempered magic.

Jaina seized hold of several of them, sending boulders of torn castle rock and cement crashing into the mages, knocking their bodies with sickening _cracks_ and sending them falling toward the shallow waves breaking over ruined houses. Another bolt grazed her scalp, the repulsive tinge of burning hair clogging her nose. She threw up a fresh shield and made the last few jumps into the portal.

Kul Tiras’ afternoon sun greeted her as she crested over the harbor, kicking her legs to find purchase on the salt-stained docks of the Tradewind Market in Boralus. A sizable crowd of market-goers and guards had gathered to stare at the ocean, where Wrathion’s body had sunk moments ago. Her appearance was barely noticed except for those in her immediate surroundings, startled by the sound of her heels beating against the woodboards. She blinked over to stand on a small rowboat docked in the harbor. The boat dipped and swayed from the motion of her weight joining that of the startled captain, anchovies slipping from the sandwich raised half-way to his stunned open mouth. 

Jaina turned to face the crowd on the dock and raised a finger to her throat, yellow runes glowing over the veins in her skin as she cast an amplification spell.

“SEND A MESSAGE TO TANDRED PROUDMOORE TO WITHDRAW THE KUL TIRAN FLEET FROM STORMWIND HARBOR,” her voice reverberated off every stone in the surrounding buildings, carrying over the sound of the waves and bells. “THE CITY OF STORMWIND IS UNDER SIEGE. TELL KATHERINE PROUDMOORE TO REFUSE ALL ORDERS COMING OUT FROM THE CAPITAL AND HOLD COMMUNICATIONS UNTIL I RETURN.”

The stunned silence was broken by the arrival of thirteen Stormwind battle mages landing on the docks, where Jaina had stood moments ago. The mages seemed startled to find themselves in the center of a crowd of agitated Kul Tirans, who were likewise startled to see them. For a moment, no one moved while somewhere beneath the waves, Jaina pictured more air slipping from Wrathion’s panicked lungs.

With a bellowing command, the Kul Tiran harbor guards drew their lances and swords on the mages. Fruit and rocks were in the air and a shower of arcane sparks illuminated the grey and green market stonework. Jaina dove off the side of the rowboat.

In the beams of sunlight piercing through the clouds of saltwater, Jaina spotted a massive shadow looming at the bottom of the harbor. Wrathion was struggling in vain to swim in his bonds, kicking up clouds of silt. Well-practiced breast strokes took Jaina down into the depths, where she slipped the toe of her boot into a rung of slime-coated metal jutting out of the barnacle crusted stone harbor wall. Her strength was waning and it took a full, agonizing half-minute to summon the portal while she watched a steady stream of thick air bubbles escaped from between the dragon’s trapped teeth. The portal materialized in full and Wrathion disappeared, water rushing to fill in the gap left behind by his body. Ocean water continued to stream through the portal and Jaina unhooked her foot, allowing it to take her body through.

She broke through, gasping in the frigid air of Coldarra, this hiss of steam greeting her ears as warm saltwater spilled out over the snow. From her position prone on the ground, Jaina raised her hand and drew her fingers in towards her palm. The portal collapsed in time with the gesture.

Jaina rose to her feet, boots squelching as she faced the bound dragon. Wrathion’s immense heat was drawing its own cloud of steam as snow melted against his scales. Raging, he sputtered and choked through the azerite gag. The smell of thick, hot blood greeted her nose, the mud around him tainted with alarming red streams.

Jaina focused on the azerite net that bound the dragon’s form. Its strands were long, thick, and barbed, hastily drawn, clamping wherever they had found purchase on the dragon’s limbs, wings, and tail. She raised her hands as she approached. Red, burning eyes stared back at her in anger and pain. A warning rumble vibrated through the air from the dragon’s throat.

“Stay still, struggling will only hurt you,” the amplification runes still ringing her throat carried the whisper across the snow. “I’m going to get this thing off you.”

The minds that had built the device were surely talented and the power contained within the bindings was immense, but it was sloppy work, hastily constructed. Streams of azerite leaked from the thing in thick currents. Granules drifted into the air in blue and gold clouds that glittered in the winter Borean Tundra sun. Jaina extended a finger and, using an arcane spell, made one precise cut.

Had her exhaustion dampened her nerves by even a fraction more than they already were, she would not have thrown up the shield in time. A terrifying blast of magma and fire tore from Wrathion’s throat as he burst from the bonds, the combined roar of both his vocal chords and the combustion making her eardrums ache and ring as it reverberated within the shield.

“I AM TRYING TO HELP YOU, TITANS _DAMN_ IT,” Jaina’s amplified scream ripped from her throat, just audible above the crackling roar of dragon fire. Her heels slid backwards over the melting snow, leaving skid marks as the force pushed against her shield.

The stream abated. The smoke cleared, swept away in the wind kicked up from Wrathion’s wings, which were beating furiously. Jaina felt raw, primal fear blossom through her body at the sight of an enraged, full-grown dragon bearing down on her. The sight of her slight mortal body, still alive beneath its lavender shield, seemed to drive him into a fresh rage.

“ **YOU FOOLS!** ” Wrathion bellowed, flames licking up the sides of his mouth as every syllable spat from his mouth came accompanied by a stream of fire. “ **YOU MISERABLE _WRETCHES_! _CURSED BARBARIC SPAWN OF VRYKUL_!**”

“I AM ALSO—!”

“ **I WILL RIP YOUR BEATING HEARTS FROM YOUR CHESTS!** ”

A strangled yell leapt from Jaina’s mouth as another blast of magma pelted her shield. Sweat was pouring down her face from the unbearable heat that could not fully be blocked.

“ **I WILL BOIL YOUR ORGANS WITHIN YOUR MELTING SKINS! I WILL BREAK YOUR DELICATE BONES ASUNDER AND CRUSH YOUR MISERABLE WITLESS SKULLS BENEATH THE WEIGHT OF MY—!** ”

Jaina’s own rage and fear were beginning to catch up with her and she turned every painful emotion into raw strength for maintaining the shield. _Anduin Wrynn has been relieved of his position as High King of Stormwind._ She did not have to wait long before the incoherent string of roaring threats abated to gasps and growls as the dragon sank to his chest in the snow, panting from the pain.

“Wrathion,” Jaina tried again. “Neither of us will be of use to Anduin if—”

At the sound of the king’s name Wrathion threw open his mouth in another roar, sending Jaina’s hair tumbling back. She took another step towards the dragon over the scorched, ashen mountaintop. His sides were heaving from the effort of breathing, red eyes rolling in his skull as he glowered at her. She had her hands raised in surrender, taking the shield with her as she walked in a halo of lavender light.

“I am not your enemy,” she pleaded. “Please, I am just as concerned for Anduin as you are.”

At last, the weight of his injuries seemed to actualize within his mind and Wrathion sank further into the ground, wings outstretched, the slightest whimper slipping from the back of his throat as he continued to grind his teeth and glower at her.

“ **What has happened in the City of Stormwind?** ” he rasped. “ **Why did you prevent me from going to him?** ”

“I swear, my intention was not to hold you at the inn,” Jaina laid a hand across her breast, her voice raw. The amplification runes were fading from the skin around her neck. “I am just as disoriented as you are.”

Smoke bloomed from both of Wrathion’s nostrils. Through the curtain, his red eyes glowed, baring her soul.

“It must have been something terrible for Greymane and that much of the military to turn against the High King,” Jaina managed to say, as an afterthought.

She had a sinking suspicion… _bewitched by the black dragon_ …but the sheer horror of the pit that would open was too much to bear in that moment as she stood, shivering, before a wounded dragon at what felt like the edge of the world.

“My mana is spent,” she said, instead, to block the thought from her mind. “Wait here, I think I know a way to replenish it.”

Wrathion was in no real position to argue; he remained, rasping in the mud. Jaina trudged from the spot of mountain rock into fresh snow, the chill biting to her toes. She spared what precious slivers of energy she had left to boil the saltwater from her clothes. It wouldn’t do to fall victim to frostbite; at least one of them had to be in standing order to be of any further use in finding safe harbor.

After several minutes of turning in circles, following her own footprints, Jaina admitted defeat. She stood at the edge of the cliffside with her hands planted on her hips, huffing frosted breath into the open air over Coldarra. In the distance, the gateway to the Nexus glittered on the horizon beneath the pink afternoon sun. It would be much colder soon. Far too soon, and the clothing that had seemed so oppressive that morning was now as useful as tissue paper wrapped around her skin.

Jaina returned to Wrathion’s side. The Black Prince had retained his drake form, now coiled about himself with his tail tucked close to his nose. His body heat had subsided by an alarming amount, Jaina had to stand within less than arm’s reach in order to feel it. The blood crusted black against the muddy snow around him. Jaina settled, perched on her toes, almost kneeling beside his massive head so that he had a clear view of her when his slitted eyelid folded back. There was no reflection in his red eyes. His breath came shallow and heavy, smelling of campfire. 

“Do you have the strength to fly?” she asked.

There was not an immediate answer. Now up close, Jaina studied him, attempting to gauge the level of harm done by the azerite net without touching. She did not have the healer’s gift to properly assess his wound. At last, though, Wrathion made a noise akin to a massive, rumbling human groan, pressing the side of his head into the earth as he lifted his wings, the membrane filtering the sun and casting a transparent blood orange shadow across both Jaina and the snow around her.

“Good,” the archmage said, her voice lowering as if she were soothing a small child. “If you allow it, I know of a place where we can go for safety. There, we can heal your wounds and get our bearings to sort this out. I will need your help, though, if you can possibly manage it.”

Wrathion’s red eyes glared as he snorted into the ground. There was a softness to his expression, though, that was not there before. He was either beginning to trust her or in so much pain that he did not have another choice.

“ **You have permission to mount my back, Jaina Proudmoore.** ”

At last, Jaina fully dropped her shield, bracing for a wall of flame that did not come. Wrathion seemed, to her alarm, well and truly spent. With a prayer of thanks and a cautious hand, she climbed up the side of his arm to rest between his shoulders, with an ease that could only come from one who had done so countless times before, if not on this exact drake. Between her knees, she felt Wrathion’s strained breath and stuttered heart beat, but nonetheless he climbed to his feet. Blood rushed to Jaina’s head as the world began to move rapidly around her, small, weak human hands clutching at the scales on Wrathion’s neck. He began to run towards the edge of the cliff, huffing and rumbling, the heat from his body kicking up another notch and sending a fresh sweat breaking over Jaina’s body. With a sound not unlike the snap of a sail unfurling, his wings extended to their full length as he leapt off the edge, taking to the cold air. Jaina’s heart leapt as they dipped then soared, the clusters of snow-capped pine trees racing beneath them. Clots of dark crimson blood dripped in their wake like rain.

Wrathion’s strength took them clear across the crater. Jaina directed him to dive down into the valley stained with ruinous arcane scars. There, amongst the jagged pillars of the Nexus’ ice prison, snow could not fall and thick mana wyrms slithered across the uncanny rocks. Wrathion landed without ceremony, a noise of pain escaping his chest, the force so clumsy that Jaina was almost thrown from his back had she not expected the ungraceful end to their flight. The archmage slid to the ground, ankles tingling from the arcane energy that streaked up through the soles of her feet.

Jaina wasted no time in hunting down one of the wyrms, extending the soft pale flesh of her arm and luring it with the promise of feasting on her own natural arcane resonance. The pads of her fingers ran across the velvet pink stomach of the wyrm as it slid closer, nuzzling into the pulse at the inside of her elbow. Her hand closed around its tail, the other gripping its neck, and snapped it up with a quick gesture not unlike the one she used to pull catfish from the rivers in the Tiragarde Sound. She brought its body between her own teeth, biting into the soft, fish-like flesh. It writhed beneath her, then stilled as she dug into the thick mana veins of its neck. The raw energy spilled out, dribbling down her chin and wrists, but most of it found its way into her mouth. She sucked with greed, her mood spiking with renewed strength, mind buzzing with equations and possibilities.

When the wyrm was drained, she laid its corpse to rest at her feet. The other wyrms had long scattered, frightened by the rare appearance of a predator. When she turned, she found Wrathion once again resting on his belly, head bowed, staining the ground with his blood.

“Almost home,” she choked, raising her hand. She drew every ounce of strength from the mana wyrm into her cast, a perfect circle originating at the center of the dragon’s body, swallowing him whole.

* * *

The magical city of Dalaran still hovered in the frosted skies above the Broken Isles, painted pale colors of blue and lavender from the sunlight reflecting off the arcane-laced clouds. Without the stain of the Legion’s shadow or the sight of Argus in the sky, the city was as peaceful as a city of mages could hope to be. The intricate tiles painting the four doves of Krasus’ Landing were repaved and the columns restored, although traces of fel burns could still be seen in the ground at the edge of the pavement, if one knew where to look.

Jaina’s portal opened too far above the landing. She had underestimated the amount of drift the city experienced, or the attentiveness in the mages responsible for renewing the floating charms that kept the structure above the surface of the planet. Wrathion tumbled, wings crooked, a weak roar tearing from his throat as he came to land, harshly, upending the new tiles in a cloud of concrete dust. Jaina soon followed, barely managing to cast a levitation spell to soften her fall to the stone. She heard shouts from the gryphon masters, some running towards her, some running away, but her attention was on the black dragon, whom she realized had fallen unconscious. Some small relief at last began to flow through her with the familiar smell of arcane currents that ran through the brick beneath her, and with it the soreness in her frayed muscles.

“Who goes there?”

Jaina turned, one hand resting at Wrathion’s side. She met the familiar fel-tinged eyes of Aludane Whitecloud, who gazed back, startled, in recognition.

“I am Jaina Proudmoore, Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras,” she said, while her hand rose and fell against the labored breathing of the dragon’s side. “And I seek sanctuary in the city of Dalaran from the Council of Six on behalf of myself and Wrathion, the Black Prince.”


	4. Through the Eye of a Needle

The sweetness of love is short-lived, but the pain endures.

\- Thomas Malory

* * *

A fierce chill wracked Wrathion’s limbs, the opposite of a mortal’s fever. He slept with his arms folded across his chest, huddled beneath layers of blankets, taking shallow, pained breaths that still managed to pull at both his bruised, broken ribs and the crusting stitches which ran up and down his side. The sound of uneven footsteps, accompanied by a cane thumping on the floor, caught his ear. He struggled to rise from his half-doze. To his confusion, although his eyelids were open, his vision remained dark. The mattress creaked and buckled behind him as a heavy weight slid over the fitted sheet to press flush against his back. Wrathion shifted to accommodate the wooden foot knocking against his calf.

“Let’s see,” Anduin’s soft yet persistent voice broke through the dark fog as Wrathion felt a gentle hand run across his arm.

“It’s nothing,” Wrathion murmured through his thick tongue, resisting as he felt the hand attempt to pry his elbow away from his aching ribs. “You should go back to bed, my prince. You need your rest.”

“Hmm, how convenient, I seem to already be in bed.”

Anduin was strong enough in his recovery now to be a proper annoyance and Wrathion was too exhausted to fight. He allowed the prince to lift his elbow, wincing as a cramp shot up his injured side from the movement. Sure, steady fingers peeled back the crude bandage, stiff with dried blood. The reeking, sharp scent of a cheap antiseptic potion wafted into the air.

“Oh, Your Highness, what on Azeroth have you gotten yourself into now?” Anduin said with an exaggerated sigh as he probed the wound site with gentle touches.

“I was taken by surprise,” Wrathion murmured. “A rare error of judgement on my par—”

Wrathion’s mouth opened into a relieved groan as a soothing warmth rippled up his ribs. Surprised, he rolled over to get a proper look at Anduin in the dark. The prince’s short blond bangs fell above his thin, handsome face, eyelashes filtering the golden holy light that shone in his eyes as he prayed. Anduin's voice was beautiful, even as it cracked from being recently roused from sleep. 

Thick trails of black blood were trickling from his nostrils and ears, dripping down his pale skin and falling across his white sleep shirt.

"Prince Anduin!” Wrathion didn’t bother to mask the alarm in his voice. He tried to sit up, but his leaden body would not cooperate.

The prayer stopped, leaving a film of Light to linger on Wrathion’s wound. Anduin swept two fingers across the top of his lip, then looked down at the stain with little interest.

“Fool of a priest!” Wrathion hissed, grabbing both of Anduin’s thin wrists to stop him from a second attempt. “You aren’t nearly well enough to cast that kind of magic!"

Anduin smiled and allowed his hands to dangle limply from Wrathion’s coiled fists.

“What’s a thimbleful of more blood compared to what this body has already endured?” he asked, dark red now coating his tongue and spilling forth over his teeth. ”Don’t you think it’s rather cruel of you, Black Prince, to deny me the only way I can be of use to anyone anymore…?”

Wrathion woke up.

He shot up into a seated position, light-headed, vision swimming. The first detail his mind found purchase on was the energy, the eddies of raw arcane resonance humming like a swarm of cicadas in the back of his mind. He was surrounded by magic, and a great deal of it at that. Everything in the room he sat in, from the cream-colored bricks to the sheer magenta-and-gold curtains to the violet purple canopy enveloping the bed, was coated in a fine dusting of it. Even the wind carried with it whispers of enchantment dust and discharge through the open stained-glass windows.

Panic swelled within Wrathion’s chest as recollection of the events in Goldshire rushed back all at once. The sight of Genn Greymane, aloft on his horse, steel blue eyes bearing down at him with such hatred. His rage held back on a razor’s edge the way only a human with worgen’s blood, coursing thick and hot through their veins, could. The dragon could smell the curse on his skin; the man was a hair’s breadth away from turning. Wrathion was used to managing looks of such contempt directed his way, though, worgen or no. He was not used to the feeling of complete and utter helplessness at the thought of a loved one in peril.

Wrathion looked down and his mortal hand flew to his chest. His scaleless skin was drenched and shivering in a film of cold sweat. He did not remember shifting out of his draconic form, yet here he was, in a human-sized bed, dressed in nothing but his small-clothes and bandages. The wounds sustained in his dragon form now translated to his mortal limbs. The largest bandage was at his side, where the azerite device imploded on first contact, from which long strings of cuts and bruises emanated where the barbed coils had clamped to his scales and skin. He was sore and his head was throbbing, but he was no longer hemorrhaging blood. It would have to be enough.

Wrathion slid from the mattress, kicking the sheets from his legs. He fell onto weak knees when he tried to take a step across the cool mosaic tiles. Biting back a grunt of pain and a sharp intake of air through his nose, he rose to his feet and stumbled to the window. He waved his palm to and fro, finding the windowsill to be mostly unguarded. Only the barest set of enchantments were in place to prevent lightning strikes, fires, and intruders from climbing in. Nothing to stop him from climbing up and leaping off the side, which he proceeded to do.

The shift into his true form caused the stitches in the wound at his side to burst. He staggered mid-takeoff from the unexpected pierce of pain that cut from hip to shoulder. His claws scraped paint from a sun-warmed dome clay roof before he gained altitude, soaring between the gleaming bejeweled spires. He looped around the city skyline while his internal compass calibrated, and a moment later he took off in one direction, leaving the magical floating city behind.

“ **Wrathion!** ”

The Black Prince turned his head to find another dragon in hot pursuit. Cobalt blue and white scales shimmered with the traces of arcane magic that clung to it from static attraction. The dragon was bigger than Wrathion, its neck and tail more slender, with a fuller set of spikes on his crest.

“ **Where are you going?** ” Kalecgos the Spell-Weaver shouted.

“ **To Stormwind City,** ” Wrathion barked.

“ **You won’t make it even halfway there with those wounds,** ” Kalecgos retorted, each flap of his wings closing the distance between them.

Wrathion, to his furor, realized that his muscles were already tiring. The throbbing in his side and the burning wounds streaking his scales hindered his acceleration. He was unable to take in enough air to maintain even his current pace.

“ **My friend, please, turn around,** ” Kalecgos’ voice emanated from below, having slowed to match Wrathion’s sluggish pace. “ **I fear this exercise will only worsen your injuries.** ”

Wrathion could feel the fatigue encroaching upon his wings at an alarming rate. His skull was on the verge of splitting open with a tremendous headache, blurring where the mountaintops cupped the skyline. The Black Prince let out a bellowing cry of frustration and relented, banking, then swooping around to reverse directions. Kalecgos followed with a dancer’s grace, keeping just far enough below Wrathion’s belly so that their wings would not clash. The reason why became apparent as Wrathion found himself unable to even regain his lost altitude. His current trajectory would take him far below the floating city, where he could see falling water and broken sewer pipes underneath its torn base.

Kalecgos rose, encouraging Wrathion’s hind claws to settle on his blue scaled shoulders, using his weight to push the black dragon higher. Together, they flew around the city parameter, coming to settle on the same landing where Wrathion and Jaina had fallen from the misplaced portal. The black dragon landed with only a fraction more grace than the previous time, kicking up more bricks in the shredded dove mural. The blue dragon came to rest a moment after, shifting into his mortal guise as he stepped down from the air. His long sapphire hair was tied into a loose bun at the back of his head, mussed strands framing his temples and the nape of his long neck. He wore plain brown breeches and a simple white cotton tunic beneath a long, sleeveless coat embroidered with silver runes. His tall black boots bore silver buckles engraved with similar symbols.

“Come, you should shift as well,” he coaxed, letting his hand rest on Wrathion’s massive shoulder. “Dalaran was not built for dragons to maneuver its streets. And it will be easier for our healers to treat you.”

The Black Prince complied and a moment later, knelt barefoot in his small-clothes on the cracked bricks as he tried to catch his breath. Kalecgos conjured a robe, which he draped across Wrathion’s bare shoulders and helped the other dragon to his feet. Wrathion allowed the blue dragon to lead him through the city, Kalecgos’ arm within reach in case he stumbled. The muscles within his mortal legs were drained of their strength, each step encumbered by the relentless burning and soreness in his side which restrained each breath. He expected more stares from the citizens as they passed, until he realized that Kalecgos was maintaining a small invisibility charm. The conjured robe was for the sake of Wrathion’s own modesty.

“I must apologize, Wrathion,” Kalecgos said as they walked. “I was supposed to be by your side when you woke up. I am sorry to have caused you undue stress.”

Wrathion chose to wave away the apology. “I am not a helpless human whelp. How long have I been unconscious?”

“Barely a day.” If the blue dragon was insulted by the rejection of his hospitality, he did not show it. “Jaina is injured as well. She would only agree to rest if I promised to stay and watch over you. I’m sorry to say I’ve failed to uphold my end of that bargain.”

The invisibility charm dropped when they were within the sanctuary of a small sand clay house, tucked away between a tower and a garden towards the edge of the city, where the lawn dipped into open air. Wrathion would have otherwise walked past the archway had he been on his own. The path was shielded with such a skillfully written subtlety enchantment that it could have only been done by the Aspect of Magic’s hand. The black dragon stopped on the elaborately patterned rug in the foyer, just outside a patch of strong sun streaming in through a large, ivy-adorned window. Kalecgos turned around to face him, one foot resting on the first step to the second floor.

“Come, we must get you back into bed,” the blue dragon said, one arm outstretched as he descended from the steps.

He attempted to take Wrathion’s arm.

“I do not require bed rest, Aspect,” Wrathion all but snarled as he stepped back. “I require insight into what madness has occurred in Stormwind to unseat King Wrynn from his throne.”

“The answer to that is unfortunately unknown,” Kalecgos’ voice was gentle as he tucked his idle hands into his coat pockets. “I am in communication with the Dalaran emissaries in the Eastern Kingdoms. Their only report is that all news has ceased coming out of the city.”

Hot smoke shot from Wrathion’s mouth as he exhaled with vexation, rising to curl about the cluster of stained glass bowl lamps hanging from the high ceiling. 

“How could the King of Stormwind have been overthrown and no one in Dalaran knows the reason why?”

“Stormwind is the capital city of the Alliance, not all of Azeroth,” Kalecgos reminded him. “Please, try to remain calm, I give you my word that we will sort this out in due time.”

Jaina’s presence at the top of the staircase drew both dragons’ attentions. She stood dressed in a thin, sleeveless sleeping gown and silk slippers. Unwashed silver hair tangled down past her shoulders, waves bent and crimped from spending so much time woven into a braid. Thick bandages covered most of her right shoulder and a burn on her cheek glistened with grease from a medicinal cream. There were further mana burns streaking up and down her bare arms.

“Wrathion,” Jaina said as she rushed down the steps. “You’re bleeding.”

The Black Prince looked down. The side of the off-white cotton robe stuck to his side, stained with a growing red patch. Jaina lifted the hem and knelt down to take a look at the opened wound.

“These stitches have completely come undone!”

“Jaina,” Kalecgos looked startled at the sight of the blood on Wrathion’s shirt, his second oversight that morning. “Please, let me fetch a healer, you should not be up, either.”

Wrathion winced and withdrew from the archmage’s touch, closing the robe over his chest. Jaina pulled back her hands, giving him an unsure glance before turning to the blue dragon.

“Have you already retrieved the device from Coldarra?” Jaina asked as she rose.

Kalecgos looked uneasy, shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “No, I have not.”

“You must retrieve it before the next snowfall,” Jaina beckoned towards Wrathion as she took a step down the hallway. “Or before some scavenger comes along and carries it away. Do you remember the coordinates I gave you?”

“Of course.”

Wrathion’s eyelids fluttered as another wave of pain, this time accompanied by nausea, rippled across his body. He refused to budge. He did not want to be under the shadow of some mage’s warded house, he wanted to be out and about in the world, gathering information.

“Wrathion, please, you cannot just let that wound go undressed,” Jaina said, gesturing to his side when she realized that he was not following. Her brows had furrowed, eyes wet with anger. “It will not heal.”

“Lord Proudmoore, thank you for your concern, but I am perfectly capable of—“

“If you do not trust me to look at your wounds, say so and I will fetch a healer. _I cannot and will not return you to Anduin in this condition._ ”

For a moment, both dragons could only gape at the sight of Jaina’s enraged countenance.

Jaina unclenched her fists, smoothed her expression, cheeks and brow turning red. Wrathion deflected with a curt nod and started walking towards her. Jaina’s shoulders relaxed and she turned on her heel, starting down the hall. Kalecgos shadowed them. 

Wrathion was somewhat perplexed by the strange layout of the house, but Jaina had no difficulty leading him into a small, bright bathroom. The dragon lingered near the doorway, one arm folded over his chest, the other pressed to the gnawing wound at his side while he watched her fetch first aid supplies out of a small cabinet above the sink.

“Jaina, truly, let me fetch someone to take care of this,” Kalecgos entreated. “I know you are more than capable of basic first aid, but you need your rest to replenish your mana.”

“I’m fine, Kalec,” Jaina did not look up from her task. “Really, I’ve gotten about as much sleep as I am capable of having at this moment.”

Kalecgos sighed. “Very well, I will leave at once. But for Titan’s sake, Jaina…”

From the doorway, as he spoke, he raised a hand and executed a spell. With a swirl of purple light, a small, floating glass table materialized in the center of the bathroom, piled with pastries, fruit, and a bottle of mana-infused wine.

“Please, eat something,” he begged before turning on his heel and sweeping himself from the room.

Jaina frowned at the now empty doorway before switching focus to Wrathion and pointing toward the flat edge of the stone basin which served as the tub. Wrathion took the hint, crossing over to take a seat. Jaina knelt by Wrathion’s feet, motioning with her finger for him to remove the robe. The enchanted, threadbare cloth disintegrated as soon as the dragon draped it across the edge of the tub beside him.

Jaina’s eyes widened. Wrathion set his mouth in a thin line as he leaned forward to let his elbows rest on his knees, giving her a full view of the gaping, blistering skin at his side. He knew the recent injury was not the reason for her staring. He could feel her gaze tracing the jagged rings of scar tissue which circled parts of his limbs, matching the one on his wrist that she had glanced at with curiosity in the Lion’s Pride Inn. Narrow threads of scar tissue, the same color and age, ran up his sides and across his back, almost like seams. They were all too precise and symmetrical to have been made during a battle. Wrathion offered nothing and Jaina recovered her composure without a word.

The archmage set to work pulling the remaining, bloodied dressings from the wound. She poured a river of antiseptic down the side, frothing as it cleaned the tear, and packed it with a fresh herbal concoction from another bottle. She threaded a needle, using a candle to disinfect the tip, and proceeded to re-sew the stitches. Wrathion bit his tongue and concentrated on studying the trails of enchanted wisps below the glass mana table.

“How long have you known?” he asked.

Jaina’s hand hesitated, fingers almost dropping the needle. Out of the corner of his eye, Wrathion saw the archmage’s head turn away, hair falling to obfuscate her profile, as she considered her answer.

“Since last winter.” She resumed her work with a sharp sting. “I saw you with Anduin, kissing in the hallway by the library.”

Wrathion’s heart sank as he recalled, in perfect detail, the exact moment. Anduin had invited him to tour the Keep one visit, to show off the rare dusting of Stormwind snow adorning the Winter’s Veil decorations throughout the outer areas. The tour devolved into a game of discreet touching, the king increasingly swept up in the thrill of brushing Wrathion’s sleeves and shoulder blades, just out of sight of the guards, almost drunk on his uncharacteristic excitement at stealing a kiss in a public space. Against his better judgement, Wrathion allowed himself to be swept along, too. He let Anduin pull him in at the waist and tipped forward to meet the king’s cold lips. Wrathion, too, was starving for affection. His soft mortal skin was so susceptible to touch, he was never satisfied: no matter how many times he felt Anduin’s body pressed close to his, he always wanted more, the weeks they would spend apart always looming. The kiss was so brief, it seemed so harmless. He trusted Anduin to be a capable arbiter of discretion within his own Keep and thought nothing more of it. Until this moment.

Wrathion let the memory disperse. He tried not to think of Anduin’s cold hands from that day. The king became cold so easily…

“Who did you tell?” he asked.

“No one,” Jaina replied, directly meeting Wrathion’s gaze in profile. “I didn’t even bring it up with Anduin. I…that was why I sought you out. Since then, I’ve been worried that the two of you weren’t being careful.”

Wrathion raised the hand on the side opposite the wound to rub his beard as he stared forward. If Jaina had not betrayed their secret, then there was something else that he was missing.

“It seems your worries were not unfounded.”

Jaina pursed her lips, but continued to sew in silence.

“I owe you an apology,” Wrathion said after a moment. “I nearly boiled you alive on that mountainside. You saved my life, not to mention how precious you are to Anduin. My temper overtook my better judgement and I am sorry for it.”

“I’ve let my temper drive me to do far worse, with less justification,” Jaina dismissed his words with a flick of her small fingers. “Please, think no more of it.”

Jaina put the final stitches in, Wrathion’s lips moving as he let out harsh exhales of pain. At last, the mending done, Jaina dressed the wound with a final coating of antiseptic and wrapped him in a bandage. She checked the rest of the smaller stitched wounds and applied fresh cream to the streaks of azerite burns. Her hand settled on his shoulder for a brief moment, the unexpected warmth causing fresh heat to rise to Wrathion’s face. Normally he would not have tolerated such a familiar gesture, but he found he did not mind.

Jaina fetched two donuts from the mana table. She took a large bite out of one and offered the second to him. After a moment's hesitation, he accepted. The conjured pastry tasted sweet, more or less as baked flour, butter, and sugar should, but there was a strange almost metallic aftertaste left with the sugar on his tongue and between his teeth.

He allowed her to lead him back to his bed and he fell into a dream-soaked haze amongst the mana dusted sheets.

* * *

The Violet Citadel contained many rooms, across many dimensions, all of which existed with the purpose of serving as a space for the Council of Six to work their magic and execute their research. Kalecgos chose a smaller, humbler drawing room to store the remains of the depleted azerite device, laying it across the great oak table that sat in the center. Kalecgos and Wrathion stood on opposite sides, an inch or two away from the edge. 

Wrathion wore a clean borrowed tunic and pants from Kalecgos, a size or two too big for his narrow frame. He was reluctant to expend energy mending his own, choosing to reserve his strength for healing. Nor did he trust another mage to perform the task. Most of his accessories had survived the ordeal, including the trimmed white rose. It lost only a few petals with the remaining enchanted ones only a bit more weathered than before. He kept it hidden in a drawer with his other jewelry.

Kalecgos’ white eyes were trained on the device on the table. Wrathion felt a slight nausea overcome him just from looking at it, his skin tingling from the memory of it chewing into his scales and skin. Jaina leaned over it, hands planted flat on the wooden table surface.

The netting was constructed from crude strips of soft metal, adorned with sharp barbs and carved with strange runes. The material had once been malleable, when it was saturated with molten rivers of azerite, but without the substance coursing through the molecules, it turned hard and brittle, not unlike a dried starfish removed from the ocean. The barbed teeth were stained with Wrathion’s dried blood. To the untrained mortal eye, the residue from the azerite would be undetectable. To two dragons and an archmage of Jaina’s ability, it was quite clear what had once powered the device and how much of it had been there.

“Where did so much azerite come from?” Kalecgos asked, the first to speak since he had brought them to the room.

“This has to have been almost all of Stormwind City’s military reserves,” Jaina said. “Kul Tiras doesn’t store a fraction of this at one time. I’ve never seen an attempt to concentrate so much azerite into so small a space. It was almost like a bomb when it went off.”

Wrathion’s mortal skin crawled at the memory of the explosion. The material was quite dense, despite its thinness.

“They’ve used a series of quantum pockets to store so much azerite in so thin a material,” Kalecgos’s finger hovered along the length of a particular segment. “It’s quite clever, although your description was accurate. This was constructed quickly. The edges are…rough. It lacks the signature polish I would expect from the Stormwind mages.”

“They were in a rush,” Jaina posited.

“Perhaps,” Kalecgos conceded.

As Jaina reached forward to touch the metal, Wrathion and Kalecgos both took in a sharp breath of air.

“Draconic suppression wards?” Jaina asked.

“Most certainly,” Kalecgos nodded.

“I don’t recognize them,” Jaina admitted, squinting. “Although, the surface is so corroded, I can’t make out most of it.”

“I can feel them,” Kalecgos said, grimly. “Wrathion, do you concur?”

The Black Prince nodded as he stroked his beard. “I’d wager that is what the majority of these runes are.”

“With a particular attunement to earth magic,” Kalecgos noted, pointing to another segment. “Look, right here, I’d say this one is _kalthir_ , ‘deep places’.”

“It most certainly is,” Wrathion conceded. His mind’s eye could not help but fill in the gaps of the spell, shuddering at the thought of the dark words.

“Well, I’m certain that the other members of the Accord may be able to help reverse engineer some of this,” Kalecgos rubbed his chin. “I’m especially curious to have the bronze flight give their input when they arrive.”

“Arrive?” Wrathion asked, unable to hide the alarm from his voice. “The Aspects are coming here?”

“Yes. I’ve summoned the Wyrmrest Accord to Dalaran so that I may discuss the situation with them.”

Cold anticipation churned in the pit of Wrathion’s gut. He had a strange feeling that the delicate situation he found himself in had just been wrenched even further from his control.

“Can you not simply travel to the Temple?” Wrathion asked, his red eyes narrowing.

“I would, but I am also loath to judge this thing benign enough to Wyrmrest without undergoing further analysis.”

With a slice of his hands, Kalecgos enchanted a blue cloth blanket to lay across the device, covering it completely.

“I’d like to bring you before the Council, as well,” the blue dragon said as he straightened the corners. “I’m sure they will have a few questions.”

The sound of rustling, like wings, drew their attention to the door. A man with cropped gray hair and heavy age-lines in his face swept in, still in his traveling cloak and heavily relying on the support of his staff as he walked. A great raven perched upon his right shoulder, so quiet and still it could have been made from the same material as the wooden bird adorning the staff if not for the breeze ruffling its soft ink-black fathers. Wrathion stared at the creature. The raven tipped its head to the side and stared back.

“So sorry for the delay, Kalecgos,” Archmage Khadgar huffed as he limped up to the table. “I took the long way over in an attempt to gather some more information.”

“Not at all, I should be the one apologizing for disrupting you,” Kalecgos said, walking around to shake the mage’s hand and conjure a chair for him. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“So good to see you again, Jaina,” Khadgar ignored the chair and extended his hand to the Lord Admiral. “I wish it were under better circumstances.”

“As do I,” Jaina agreed, clasping Khadgar’s hand and squeezing it.

The archmage’s old eyes drifted to the table. He glanced at Kalecgos, who gave a nod of permission, and he lifted the corner to take a peek at what lay underneath.

“My gods,” his eyes widened. “Jaina, are you all right?”

“Yes, of course. I was not the target.”

Khadgar let the cloth drop and at last turned his gaze towards Wrathion, a look of guarded caution in his young violet blue eyes. Wrathion did his best to maintain a tunnel-like focus on the mage and not the raven, though he felt the beady black eyes boring into him.

“Pleased to finally make your acquaintance, Wrathion of the Black Dragonflight,” Khadgar said, extending his hand once again.

Wrathion shook Khadgar’s hand, forcing his eyes not to drift to the raven. He could sense the spell Khadgar was using to gauge his power through the lines in his palm, though the mage hid it well. 

“The pleasure is most certainly mine, Archmage,” Wrathion said. “I trust your work in restoring Karazhan is going well?”

“Oh, it ebbs and flows,” Khadgar waved a hand in dismissal as he at last made his way over to the chair. “I’m sorry that my research took me away during your time there.”

With a small huff, Khadgar eased his body into the seat and set his staff to rest beside him. The staff, Atiesh, Greatstaff of the Guardian, stood perfectly upright on the tile as if an invisible hand were holding it in place. The raven launched itself from the mage’s shoulder and perched on a nearby bookshelf, observing from afar. Jaina and Kalecgos didn’t seem to notice, though Wrathion closed his eyes for a brief moment as the bird swooped between them, the slight wind kicking up his dark hair.

“I took a side tour of the towns west of Deadwind Pass,” Khadgar explained as he leaned forward and massaged his lower back. “Along the way I heard many rumors and rumblings about dragons. The only thing that seems to be certain is Stormwind City has closed itself off. No one is going in or out.”

“Was walling off one city not enough for Greymane?” Jaina groused, flinging her arms as she paced in a circle before facing Khadgar with arms crossed tight across her chest. “What was the mood like in Elwynn?”

“Calm,” Khadgar said with a wave of his gloved hand. “The farmers and nobles are, understandably, a bit wary. Everyone who can seems to have a few more guards walking out and about. The innkeeper in Goldshire is particularly put out about the state of his building. But, life goes on. The cows still need to be milked, after all, dragons or no.”

Khadgar rubbed his stubbled chin as he studied Jaina and Wrathion. Wrathion saw his eyes flicker in thought.

“Kalecgos gave me a summary of events, but I would like to hear everything from your point of view, if you please,” he said. “To paint a clearer picture, if you will.”

Jaina launched into a full retelling of events, starting with her departure from Kul Tiras, while Wrathion stood quietly, hands folded behind his back as he went back and forth between studying the paintings on the walls and the pointed tips of his leather boots.

“What I’m having trouble understanding is exactly why this happened,” was the first thing Khadgar said, once Jaina finished. “I don’t understand the Black Prince’s role in all of this. I thought it was well known that while the black dragonflight is in resurgence, its members are both uncorrupted and only interested in assisting the Speaker for Azeroth.”

Jaina looked to Wrathion. The dragon took in a small breath of air.

“There are those in Stormwind who believe that I have been manipulating my way into power, like members of my family have done before my time,” the Black Prince explained. “Because it is now widely known that during my visits to Stormwind to deliver the Speaker’s reports, I was sharing the king’s bed.”

The raven in the corner made a small cawing noise that sounded almost like a laugh. The faintest trace of red took to Khadgar’s face as he sat, processing this information.

“I see,” the archmage said, finally, his expression still neutral. “Hm. And you and the king tried to keep this a secret?”

“It was our intention to be discreet, yes.” Heat spread across Wrathion’s face, a ferocious blush that he could not control. “Neither of us desired the complications that an official royal courtship would entail. While we were aware our relationship would perhaps be frowned upon by Stormwind society, we did not think we were committing a capital offense.”

“Hmh, clearly there are enough in Stormwind who disagree,” Khadgar continued, rubbing his jaw. “I probably will not be able to whisk Anduin out from behind the city walls, but I can offer my services as a negotiator. Let me attempt to break Stormwind’s silence and shed a little more light on the situation. You said that it is Genn Greymane who now sits in the Lion’s Seat?”

Wrathion conceded, “Those were his words.”

“Right,” Khadgar rose to his feet with a small grunt of determination. “Genn is known to have a temper, certainly, but he is a man of reason. And he loves Anduin like he would his own son. Perhaps some of Stormwind’s fears can be assuaged if there were a third party to relay communications.”

He plucked Atiesh from the air, discharging the holding enchantment with a small thrum.

“Kalecgos, let’s convene with the others in the Chamber of Air. My intervention will require a vote, but I’m sure the others will agree that it is in Dalaran’s best interest to do what they can to prevent a civil war from rending the Great Alliance. Do not worry, Jaina.”

Kalecgos and Khadgar took their leave, abandoning Jaina and Wrathion to stand together in silence at the table with the remains of the infernal azerite net. When Wrathion turned to look around the room, the raven was nowhere to be found.

* * *

The morning of the Accord’s arrival, Wrathion took particular care with arranging his mortal form. Dragons cared little for each others’ mortal illusions, their interest and respect would only be for the signatures of draconic power that thrummed beneath the skin. Still, Wrathion combed and trimmed his beard, taking some comfort in the routine. He used the rune-heated bath in Kalecgos’ guest bedroom to scrub himself clean and ensured that his wounds had fresh dressings and bandages. He swallowed a vial of potion to dull the pains, but could do little about the rope-thin, shining burn marks that were still healing across his face, neck, and arms. He did his best to mask the bruises from under his eyes with a bit of powder and black kohl eyeliner. His enchantments could only do so much. The mortal form was a draconic illusion that could be refined in time, after centuries of a dragon honing its skills, but it was ultimately a mirror of the dragon beneath.

Wrathion had regained enough strength to mend his own clothes and dressed in his olive-and-black striped pants, billowing below the knee where they tucked into his curl-toed leather boots. The star-ruby at his throat pulsed in the neck of his buttoned white shirt; the mana saturated in Dalaran’s atmosphere seemed to amplify its glow. He kept the gold embroidered sleeves rolled above the elbows and ironed and pressed his red sash before tying it off at the waist. At the last moment, he fastened the head of the slightly-bruised white rose at his breast pocket. His hand cupped it for a moment, finger pads rubbing against the silk petals.

The dragon made his way out into the lilac-illuminated cobblestone streets. Dalaran was bustling with activity, of more variety and color than Stormwind or any of the other cities in the Eastern Kingdoms, for certain. Members of both the Horde and the Alliance roamed the streets, in addition to countless neutral parties and the mages of the Kirin Tor. Coffee shops and restaurants were setting up patio furniture, the shopkeepers unfurling floating signs and unlocking the bars on the windows. A gardener was making the rounds with a watering can that seemed to be enchanted with a bottomless supply of water, attending to the rainbow of plant potters lining the streets.

As he approached the steps of the Violet Citadel, the smell of sweet pastries and caramelizing sugar caught Wrathion’s attention. He spied a high elf supervising a purple-painted pastry cart. She had dark violet hair pinned back by a teal headband and wore a simple dress with sandals. Her bright blue eyes were searching for early morning customers and when she spied him, he was almost taken back by how bright and warm her smile was. He had forgotten that not all cities greeted dragons the way that the citizens of Stormwind did.

“Good morning, Lord Dragon,” the elf flourished what appeared to be a vanilla cupcake with blush pink frosting and small sprinkled candies. “I don’t recall having seen your handsome face around here before. Are you a visitor to our city?”

“Of a sort.” A small smile, the first since his arrival, cracked across Wrathion’s face. “I suppose you must be a member of the welcoming committee?”

“Indeed, my lord!” the elf laughed, nudging the frosted cupcake further in his direction. “Have your first of Dalaran’s magical pastries, on the house, as a welcome gift.”

Wrathion almost declined, but at the last second, accepted the offering. He downed it in three careful bites, tongue curling from the sweetness. He licked his claws as he ascended the Citadel steps, sun warming his face and hair, greeted by elemental attendants.

The attendants led him through a series of portals and winding halls into an empty chamber, where Jaina and Kalecgos were waiting. The room had a high vaulted ceiling adorned with a mural of the sky that matched the yellow and blue hues of the weather outside. It was cooled by the air drifting in through the open stained-glass windows, and the air vibrating from the illumination charms that kept the glass lamps afloat. Potted ferns lined the walls, interspersed with bookshelves and gilded mirrors. Wrathion lingered for a moment in the doorway. The two mages appeared to be arguing, Kalecgos with his arms crossed and Jaina with her hands planted firmly on her hips. They noticed Wrathion’s presence almost immediately and ceased whatever intense line of questioning they were on, fixing him with wary smiles.

One other dragon was already in the room, initially hidden by one of the bookshelves. The small, cherub face that poked out from the side of the case lit up at the sight of the black dragon. She waved with the hand that was not cradling the heavy volume she had been thumbing through.

“Wrathion!” Chronormu greeted. “So good to see you again!”

“The pleasure is mine, Timewalker.” Wrathion exchanged the wave for a simple bow. 

He was tempted to strike up a conversation, threaded with a series of careful questions to place where the dragon had come from in their timeline, but thought better of it. He did not want to risk alienating the emissary of the Bronze Dragonflight from his cause before the meeting had even begun.

The second Aspect arrived not long after. Merithra of the Dream inherited both her mother’s tall, wiry kaldorei form and long, tapered horns that had the color and texture of tree branches. She brought with her the scent of rain and damp soil as she made her way barefoot across the floor to take Wrathion’s hands and thread her long, slender fingers with his. Wrathion bristled as he felt the tendrils of nature magic creep up his wrists and forearms, attempting to soothe the exposed burns without asking permission. Her sleepy-eyed gaze was not unkind, though, as they exchanged blessings and her cheeks darkened as soon as she realized her transgression. She murmured an apology and wished him good health before joining the others at the table.

The next dragon to enter was not an aspect, but Ebyssian, to Wrathion’s surprise. He had not expected to see him and his hearts swelled at the familiar sight of the massive Highmountain form and the smoky, bitter scent of pipeweed. Ebyssian rushed into the room, still wearing a dusty woven traveling poncho and bringing in trails of mana dust from the wind. His hooves shook the floor as he stormed across it, stopping just short of knocking Wrathion over.

“Brother.” The black dragon’s large hands engulfed Wrathion’s own, his dark brown eyes mournful. “By the Titans, I am so very grateful to see you alive.”

“Thank you, Brother, so am I,” Wrathion returned with an attempt at a reassuring smirk.

Ebyssian did not smile back. Wrathion itched as he noticed the other black dragon’s eyes tracing the outline of exposed bruises and burns on his skin. The elder dragon seemed as if he wanted to say more, but merely gave the younger’s hands one last clap before dropping them and making his way to greet the other Aspects.

The last dragon to enter the room wore the guise of a high elf, albeit a form that was much taller and muscular than the three male quel’dorei consorts that trailed in her wake. Her long, poppy-red hair was crowned with black, antlered horns, adorned with gold decorations and magenta jewels that matched the chains and bangles on her bare, freckled arms. She wore a long, sheer vermillion robe that parted at her bare waist to show off her soft, embroidered pants and gold-plated boots as she walked. Alexstrasza, Queen of the Dragons, made her rounds about the room. She greeted each and every other dragon in kind, receiving a bow and a kiss of her right hand in return. Her consorts arranged themselves amongst the pillows of a chaise lounge in the corner, watching the proceedings with passive, identical blue eyes.

“Dear Wrathion, I am glad that you are still with us,” the Black Prince heard as he leaned over to press his lips against the back of her hand.

When he rose to meet her glistening, honey-gold gaze, her fingers reached out to touch one of the burns on his face, then dropped to do the same with the bandages at his side, hidden beneath his shirt to everyone else in the room. He felt a wave of nausea run up his spine and quashed the urge to recoil.

“I am deeply sorry for your misfortune, young one.”

Wrathion replied, dutifully, “Thank you, Life-Binder.”

The touch of Alexstrasza’s flaxen magic lingered on his skin as she glided to the center of the room on soft heels, where the other Aspects had gathered to examine the remnants of the device. Wrathion joined them. Jaina sat on another couch near the consorts, hands folded as she observed, her blue eyes bright and studious.

By the table, Wrathion found that each of the dragons wore a corresponding look of concern, save for Chronormu, who did not seem surprised at all. Alexstrasza’s hand was curled at her chin and she seemed reluctant to touch the table. Merithra, too, seemed unsure of what to do with her hands as she examined the device, her heavy brows furrowed while she wrung them. Kalecgos, like Wrathion, stood a foot or so back, arms folded over his chest, having spent the past four days studying the thing. Ebyssian took one look at the device and walked away towards one of the walls, shaking his head and rubbing his face.

“…has it begun?” Merithra was the one to break the silence, looking up at Kalecgos, then Wrathion in distress. “Now that the twilight of the aspects has come to pass, are the mortals now openly hunting our kind?”

“They’ve always done so,” Kalecgos said, lightly. “It is not unusual. The attacks on Nefarian and his brood, for example.”

“Indeed, attacks against our kind are not so infrequent,” The implication behind Alexstrasza’s words hung thick in the room, along with the memory of her lost brood. “How did this happen, young Wrathion?”

The Black Prince took a deep breath.

“The incident occured in Goldshire,” he began. “While I was on my way to deliver one of the Speaker’s regular reports to King Wrynn.”

“Ah, yes, your errands,” Alexstrasza said with a knowing nod, folding her graceful hands over her stomach. “How terrible.”

“You make those journeys regularly, Brother,” Ebyssian’s voice rumbled from the back of the room. His antlered head towered over those of the Aspects, even from a distance. “Is this the first time that you have encountered such hostility from the king’s men?”

“Yes,” Wrathion found it easier to talk while pacing. He held his hands clasped behind his back as he turned back and forth across the length of the floor. “I am not so ignorant of his people’s preconceived notions. They have good reason to turn a wary eye towards an open member of the Black Dragonflight in their midst. But I have never before encountered hostility such as to harm my person.”

“Do you know why the King of Stormwind ordered your capture, then?” Merithra asked.

“The attack was not ordered by King Wrynn,” Wrathion replied. “He has been overthrown by a military coup, led by the King of Gilneas, Genn Greymane. That is all I know at this time. Stormwind has otherwise cut itself off from the world.”

“Greymane. I am unfamiliar with this mortal,” Alexstrasza tilted her head with curiosity. “And I am confused. Why would the humans of Stormwind choose to attack the Speaker’s emissary during a coup? Were they displeased with the Speaker, or think him involved in their grievances with the king?”

Wrathion took another breath to steady his voice. “No, Life-Binder.”

All the dragons in the room were watching him.

Wrathion repeated what he had told Khadgar. He explained, as briefly and with as few details as he could. The heat still came to his face, burning perhaps even more intensely under the scrutiny of his peers. Unlike Khadgar, though, his words drew no reaction. Even Ebyssian looked still.

“You’ve taken the King of Stormwind as a consort?” Merithra’s tone betrayed only a minor curiosity as she tilted her head towards one bare shoulder.

“I have,” Wrathion felt, of all ridiculous things, a sense of pride mixing with the adrenaline in his veins. “And I believe he is in terrible peril now because of it.”

“You believe that this is the cause of the coup?” Alexstrasza’s long, elven eyebrows arched. “The humans of Stormwind suspect foul play on your part?”

“I suspect that is the short of it, yes,” Wrathion could not keep the weariness from his voice. “Despite all I have done, for Azeroth and for Her mortals, I have not yet overcome the dire legacy of my flight. But, perhaps if I went to Stormwind, and was accompanied by members of the Accord, to vouch for myself and help explain the situation, we might be able to relieve him from his situation.”

Silence and passive stares met this heated declaration, leaving Wrathion standing with his breath quickening. Hands hanging limp by his sides, he tapped the tips of his fingers together in response to his nerves while he waited for someone to speak.

“We cannot do that, Wrathion,” Kalecgos was first, his voice gentle.

“Why not?”

“We cannot interfere in the politics of mortals,” Merithra reminded him.

“We have done so before,” Wrathion directed a pointed stare at Chronormu, who met it without sign of distress. “Have we not?”

“The Vision of Time is a tool,” the bronze dragon replied. “And the lesson we learned there, unfortunately, was that we should never have given it to mortals, nor trusted a dragon who wanted to do so.”

“You speak of using the dragonflights to have direct influence on the governance of a kingdom,” Alexstrasza explained. “Threats, intimidation...these are things that we simply cannot allow ourselves to do. Even in the waning power of the Aspects, the risk of dragonflight autocracy over Azeroth is too great.”

“The Kingdom of Stormwind has inflicted a direct assault on myself and now holds my mate hostage!” The word that Wrathion had never before dared to use to describe Anduin felt strange and toxic on his tongue. “Surely a response by the Wyrmrest Accord can be justified?”

Alexstrasza shook her crowned head.

“It is not.” 

“And what if it had been one of yours attacked and captured by the city of Silvermoon,” Wrathion demanded with a gesture to the lounging pile of consorts in the corner.

“But Silvermoon would never have an interest in them,” Alexstrasza explained, not with malice. “None of these elves are royalty, nor are they part of any other mortal ruling body. I would never take a consort that was so entrenched in the quel’dorei monarchy.”

“What are you insinuating, Life-Binder?”

Wrathion turned to each of the Aspects. Through their passive expressions, he only saw hints of pity.

“Wrathion,” Kalecgos began, with concern. “Perhaps it was not wise to return the king’s affection. Mortals can be very much taken with our kind, to the point where it clouds their faculties of common sense…”

Wrathion’s eyes flickered to Jaina, who looked enraged at this insinuation, though she held her tongue.

“Let’s speak no more of this.” Alexstrasza raised her hand. “The Accord will not interfere in the governance of Stormwind. We must turn to a different matter at hand and decide what to do about this device.”

The rest of the meeting passed in a blur. Wrathion found his mind unable to focus on the discussion about runes and azerite and what the cold arcane mathematics meant for the declining powers of the Aspects. He staggered out of the room and onto the balcony, leaning against the marble railing between a pair of potted ferns. A strange, tin-colored ringing overwhelmed his ears, deafening the noises from the street down below. He steadily inhaled fresh air, unaware of how shallowly he had been breathing.

Wrathion heard the gentle sound of high heels clicking over the balcony tiles.

“You seem distressed, dear Wrathion.” 

He turned to find Alexstrasza standing much closer than he would have liked. 

“I thought I would offer you some council, should you choose to hear it. I know our flights have, historically, not been on the best of terms and I hope to further our pursuit of goodwill between them.”

The small of Wrathion’s back was now pressed into the cold, hard railing. He could put no more distance between them.

“I will hear your wisdom, Life-Binder.”

Alexstrasza took a step closer. Her gossamer, golden aura completely enveloped his. She lifted her hand to rest upon his upper arm, her clawed fingers catching in the threads of his sleeve. Heat soaked in through the cloth and skin, the life magic saturating down to the bone. The ringing grew louder as he fought the urge to fall backwards over the railing.

“I could not help but notice your unusually fervid affection for humans,” she said. “I fear you may be spending too much time in this mortal form. In the Red Dragonflight, we highly discourage whelps from experimenting with transformation before they are fully matured.”

“Ah, indeed,” Wrathion’s mouth was dry. “Perhaps that would be prudent. I will consider it.”

“Humans are such a fraught race,” the red dragon continued, fingers now stroking his arm as she continued to direct traces of her warm magic to seep into his skin. “It is particularly difficult for the young and inexperienced of our kind to grapple with their delicate forms and short lifespans as their consorts. Perhaps you would have been better off choosing an elf.”

Wrathion’s tongue remained still, his throat tight as he stared at the Dragon Queen’s shoulder. Alexstrasza seemed to sense that something was amiss, for she withdrew her hand, and with it, merciful relief from the touch of her magic.

“Wrathion, please do not take offense,” The red dragon’s voice flowed with an unbearable earnestness. “I offer my advice in good faith. Every mortal’s life is precious, each creature an unrepeatable miracle of design and thought. To have spent time with any one is an immeasurably precious gift. But, the course of their lives is but the blink of an eye in the span of a dragon’s. And you are so young, you have not yet lived long enough to see even one mortal live their entire lifespan and die.”

Red light flickered as Wrathion closed his own eyes briefly. The wound in his side thrummed with pain.

“He is your first, is he not?”

“Yes,” the Black Prince said, his voice barely a whisper. “He is.”

A benign sigh escaped the Dragon Queen’s throat.

“You have so much life ahead of you, dear Wrathion,” Alexstrasza’s golden eyes were inescapable. “Surely there will be another.”

A cough at the balcony’s door made Alexstrasza turn. Wrathion swayed, his vision spinning from the release of her gaze. He found that Ebyssian now stood in the doorway, watching them with dark eyes.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” he said, his voice betraying no malice as he gave a deferential bow. “I wish to speak with my brother.”

“Of course.” Alexstrasza gave Wrathion one last, unendurable look of pity. “I’m sure you will have more success in comforting him.”

The queen turned and left, in a swirl of incense and clinking jewelry.

“Brother, what’s wrong?” Ebyssian asked as he approached, brows knit with concern.

Words failed Wrathion for a moment as he rubbed his beard and eyes, turning away to hide his attempts to compose himself. The sun was beginning its descent into the clouds.

“Nothing, Ebyssian,” he said, at last. “I was merely contemplating the Life-Binder’s words.”

He felt warmth at his back from his brother’s presence, a more comforting sensation, but all the Black Prince wanted in that moment was space to breathe.

“…when were you going to tell me that you had taken a mate?”

Wrathion looked sharply over his shoulder. His brother seemed…disappointed.

“He…we were not quite mated,” he struggled to explain. “Not formally. I did not think...”

“Did you not trust me?”

The look on Ebyssian’s face betrayed a kind of hurt that Wrathion had never seen from him before. Hot anger and frustration boiled in Wrathon's chest and he found no grace to easily conjure words of comfort and reassurance to extend to his brother. All along, Wrathion had seen his relationship with the king as a brittle and precious thing. Even now, he was not sure why Ebyssian needed justification for his secrecy given what had occured.

He did not have to figure out an answer, for Jaina stood in the doorway, looking uncertain.

“Forgive me for interrupting,” she said. “Wrathion, Khadgar has returned from Stormwind. He wants to speak with us.”

* * *

“They are holding a trial.”

Khadgar sat drinking coffee at the table, Atiesh once again standing next to his chair, held aloft by some sort of enchantment. The Aspects had left, Kalecgos bringing them to eat dinner at a favorite restaurant elsewhere in the city. With nothing else to do, Ebyssian had followed Jaina and Wrathion back in the room and stood a respectful distance off to the side, listening.

“The purpose is to determine the extent of Anduin’s transgressions and sort out how much of it was coercion. The outcome will decide whether he should be reinstated as king or if the crown should be handed off to a more suitable noble house.”

“That is absurd,” Jaina stated.

Khadgar gave a small, apologetic shrug. “It is how the noble houses of Stormwind wish to proceed. They are all in unanimous agreement and quite insistent on this matter. They also request that the Black Prince willingly submit himself for similar analysis and judgement.”

“You’re joking,” Jaina sharply looked from Khadgar to Wrathion and back. “They expect him to just surrender himself to them? After what they’ve done to him?”

“Yes,” Khadgar said. “They asked this after I managed to convince them to abandon their calls for champions of the Alliance to hunt him down. They understand that he is protected by Dalaran’s sanctuary laws, but they will attempt to arrest him if he is found in Alliance territory.”

“What about Anduin?” Jaina asked. “Did you manage to speak with him?”

“No.” Khadgar used a handkerchief to wipe sweat from his brow. “His location is currently a secret, something to prevent lynch mobs from dragging him out into the street. They assured me, though, that he is both safe and well.”

Jaina pursed her lips and made a dissatisfied noise. Wrathion remained silent.

“Genn is, indeed, acting as King Regent for the time being,” Khadgar continued. “He answers to the House of Nobles, who will be collectively pressing the charges against Anduin.”

His violet eyes flickered up to meet Wrathion’s red ones.

“My advice would be to agree to their demands.”

“What?” Jaina shouted. “Khadgar! No!”

Wrathion remained outwardly calm, although his skin bristled as he gritted his teeth.

“However they spoke to you,” the young dragon said, unable and unwilling to keep the bile of sarcasm from his tone. “It seems to have inspired a great deal more confidence than their poor attempts at conversation with me.”

“I have no reason to doubt their ill intentions.” Khadgar ignored the quip and spread his hands. “Look at it this way: you would have a chance to defend yourself before the entire House. You will be given an opportunity to explain yourself, the mission of your flight, your relationship to Anduin. You could not arrange for a more attentive and open audience. And submitting to their process would be taken as a gesture of peace from the Black Dragonflight. If I were in your position, I would not miss the opportunity to eliminate their concerns once and for all.”

The mage paused for a moment, contemplating his next words. When he spoke, his voice was kinder. 

“Perhaps you could also take this as an opportunity to ensure a future with Anduin, with the blessings of the nobility. I’ve been told that you have quite the gift for rhetoric, Black Prince. If anyone could argue in his defense, it would be you.”

Wrathion shook his head, with it brushing aside the flattering words.

“I will not be put on stage and forced to argue for my flight’s worth to exist freely.” He threw an open palm out in Ebyssian’s direction. “Our work in Silithus alone should vouch for itself, to say nothing of N’zoth’s defeat or Ebyssian’s guardianship over Highmountain.”

“What do you suggest, then?” Khadgar asked, warily, from over the brim of his coffee cup.

“We will go to the other members of the Great Alliance and appeal to their common sense,” Wrathion argued as he began to pace, taking long strides as he swept across the length of the parlor. “King Wrynn is a peaceful diplomat who has a long history with at least half of the other current faction leaders. Surely some of them can be persuaded to come to his defense.”

To his annoyance and disappointment, no one else in the room seemed convinced of this plan, least of all his brother.

"Wrathion," Ebyssian rationalized. "I know it's difficult for you to see the bigger picture, you are still young and have not yet learned to navigate the thorny, emotional business of mortal politics..."

Something within the Black Prince snapped. He whipped around and bellowed, voice deep with distortion:

“ **I ACCOMPLISHED MORE IN MY FIRST HALF-YEAR OF LIFE THAN YOU’VE DONE IN ALL TEN-THOUSAND OF YOURS.** ”

Wrathion’s skin split as scales splayed over the edges of his cheekbones. Thick horns curled out from his cleaving skull, the sharp tips entangled in his dark hair. All the while smoke poured from his nostrils and mouth, masking his face, as he advanced on his brother.

" **HOW _DARE_ YOU CHASTISE ME HERE AND NOW AS IF YOU DID ANYTHING OTHER THAN SIT BENEATH YOUR SHIELD IN HIGHMOUNTAIN AND _ROT_.**”

Ebyssian looked well and truly frightened, a reaction that took Wrathion by complete surprise. The elder dragon’s response to the outburst was to duck behind his outstretched arm, as if his tauren skin could do anything to shield him from the dragon fire smoldering in the back of the younger dragon’s throat. Cow-like ears folded flat against the hair on his neck, veins bulging with his quickening pulse.

The two black dragons stared at each other as they continued their staggered, labored breathing, circling the other like rabid animals. For the first time, Wrathion knew with absolute certainty which one of them would walk away from an altercation, a real, true brawl between two dragons of the earth, each fighting to the death. He could almost picture how easy it would be to outmaneuver his softer brother in flight, to swoop up from underneath and run a claw...

Wrathion stopped moving. As he looked about the room, he found Khadgar and Jaina shaken. They stared at him, wide-eyed and silent with trepidation. There was a hum of magic in the air from the spells both were preparing in anticipation of a need to subdue the two of them, in case it did come to blows.

Without another word, the Black Prince turned on his heel and retreated from the room on foot. He struggled to smooth the scales from his skin and pull the horns back as he made his way out of the Citadel and into the cool night air. He could wrest little control over the shapeshifting magic and his body heat ran far too hot, his form was haloed in mid-air mirages as he walked. Steam hissed under his boots as he stepped through puddles collected in the dips of worn cobblestones. 

All the while, he was overwhelmed by the memory of hundreds of dead black dragon corpses, rotting in the Outlands, seared forever in his memory. All were slain by his hand. The deed had cleansed Azeroth of Deathwing’s horrific legacy but at night, his tears flowed freely for a year. Those same hot tears pricked at his eyes now. The last of Deathwing’s brood, his flight, his family, all brought to extinction during a time of desperation when the only one who would stop them was a newborn whelp.

The feeling of someone following him pricked his scalp, staying the tears. Wrathion flipped his dagger from its sheath hidden in the folds of his sash.

He spun around and just missed severing Left's jugular as she dodged the blow. The weapon skidded in sparks across the stone wall behind her. The Black Prince stood and gaped, blade frozen in the groove it made in the soft brick. Left’s dark brown eyes gawked back, wide with concern. The lines in her face ran deeper through the green skin and her dark ponytail now reached her waist. She had let the shaved part of her head grow in, it was long enough to be bundled with the rest in its leather band. She seemed thinner, too.

Left took a slow step forward, then raised her arms to pull him down into a tight embrace. The dagger dropped and hit the ground at the dragon's boots with a loud clatter as his hands came to rest on her back. He buried his face in her neck, taking in the familiar scent of her skin and leathers.

"My Prince," Left said in Orcish, stroking the back of his head as his shoulders trembled under her arms. "I came as quickly as I could."

Wrathion pulled away, hands moving to grip both her shoulders. "Where is Right?"

Left hesitated, her keen eyes darting around the unfamiliar street. 

”Is there somewhere we can speak in private?"

Wrathion shook his head, his expression taught. "This blasted city has mages’ ears pinned to every..."

His eyes fell on a sewer grate.

Some time later, Wrathion and Left were in Dalaran’s Underbelly, seated in a small room they had swept clean of both vermin and crude arcane-powered listening devices. Left pulled out a flask from her satchel and took a swig, passing it to Wrathion, which he drank from greedily. Hot liquor burned on his tongue.

"By now, Right should be in Stormwind," Left explained. "She will contact me once she has ascertained Anduin’s whereabouts and whether or not he is safe.”

Wrathion shook his head. His eyes were glassy under the dragon fire. "He's been overthrown by his own people. Of course he isn't safe."

"No, I mean if his life is in immediate danger," Left clarified. “Execution."

Wrathion felt fresh shock ripple through his body, his limbs numbing with pins and needles. To keep himself from taking an explosive action that he would later regret, he instead leaned back almost casually in the chair. His hand came to rest across his mouth and he found himself staring at the ceiling. The urges he felt in that moment were frightening.

"Sir," the sharpness of Left's tone brought the room back into focus. "We will not let that happen."

"Right is a better rogue than I but even she cannot single-handedly put herself between the High King's neck and a noose," Wrathion said to the ceiling, his voice stifled by his fingers still covering his mouth.

"She is not alone.”

“Every guard in that city will be on the highest alert for anyone who so much as looks like they’ve ever held a black dragon scale," Wrathion was growing enraged as he brought his hands back down on the table, almost slamming them. He stopped trying to suppress the thick, twin pairs of dragon horns, still curving from his mortal skull. "Blacktalon cannot possibly hope to infiltrate at this time."

“We do not need any measure of control over the city, only a handful of agents," Left argued, utterly unphased by his outburst. "Information gatherers. You will require ears and eyes in that city if you are to figure out what's going on.

She cocked her head to the side, ponytail falling across her shoulder as she raised a brow. “Unless these mages have your complete trust?”

Wrathion shook his head, running his fingers through his hair. Khadgar's face came to mind, kind and wise beyond his literal years, but far too optimistic in his ability to reach a compromise. A mage’s intelligence came from books and theory. Diplomacy required intuition and experience. The Black Prince had no contrary argument to make.

"Please alert me as soon as you've heard from her,” he said.

"Of course, sir," Left swept her arm across the table and took his hand. 

She said nothing further. Left had always been the quiet one, one could call her shy, even, and leaned on Right to do most of the talking for the both of them. But the pressure of her strong, thin fingers against his was familiar. The Black Prince knew what she was trying to say and he was grateful as he returned the squeeze.

* * *

Stormwind’s halls were decorated with candles and floral arrangements, the fresh scent of the Winter’s Veil blossoms bringing some respite to the stuffy, smoky air. The smell of sweat was inescapable, crowded as the Keep was with humans, dwarves, and gnomes dressed in their finest silks and satins to attend the holiday celebration. Every face turned to look at Wrathion as he passed, unable to weave through the crowd without knocking against aggressive shoulders and elbows. He ignored the looks, the food, even the drinks as he stalked the winding halls. At last, he found the throne room. The Lion’s Seat sat empty, adorned with red poinsettia wreaths and branches of pine, the guest benches pushed aside to clear space for a dancing floor. String music played somewhere out of sight in the balcony. The Black Prince struggled to make out the musicians, hidden in the shadows above near the ceiling.

“Wrathion!”

The Black Prince whipped around and his hearts ached at the sight of King Anduin, dressed in a fine black suit with gold embroidery at the sleeves, arms outstretched and a handsome smile on his face as he strode across the room, the heels of his leather boots clicking on the stone. It was by far the friendliest look Wrathion had received since he’d stepped through the gates.

“Your Majesty,” Wrathion could not contain his smile as he bowed.

Before he could get out another word, Anduin swept him up in his arms, throwing one of Wrathion’s hands onto his shoulder and scooping his other up in his warm palm. Anduin’s bright, happy face grinned and he began to lead them across the floor.

“Anduin!” Wrathion protested in alarm. “Stop! What are you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, Prince Wrathion?” the king countered, his voice light and playful.

Each step Anduin took was smooth and sure. Wrathion almost couldn’t believe his eyes.

“I….I merely didn’t want you to hurt yourself…” he managed to say. “….this is quite the surprise, Your Majesty.”

“Good.” The king’s flushed face betrayed a hint of pride as he pulled the dragon closer, their foreheads almost touching. Wrathion was overwhelmed by the feeling of warm relief in cradling Anduin in his arms. “I wanted to surprise you. I’ve been practicing.”

Wrathion shook his head in wonder; his tongue had become strangely thick. The edges of the room were blurring and the throne room had emptied. Guests driven away in disgust, he guessed, a dark mood spreading across his breast. The king’s manner was not so easily spoiled.

“I’m so glad you’ve come.” Anduin’s voice was gentle, his eyes brimming with open adoration. “You look truly magnificent tonight.”

“And you…”

Anduin spun the dragon around. The throne room whirled, but the king caught him easily on his return. Wrathion’s eyes naturally drifted to the king’s bare hand and one of his hearts leapt into his throat.

There were no scars on his skin.

It was as if a thin veil had fallen from his eyes. Looking back into Anduin’s face was now like looking into that of a stranger’s. His face was too smooth, the smile just an inch too wide. When Wrathion tried to pull away, he found the king’s grip held like it was carved from stone. There was no escaping from those wide eyes, a brilliant, ice blue without a trace of grey.

When Wrathion opened his mouth to protest, he found his hands had fused to the king’s body, a thick, black ooze similar to how N’zoth had bled when the champions clung to him, bound them together. Each tug in the opposite direction seemed to pull him further in. The changeling’s face broke out into pockets of small holes. From each one leered a single, luminous yellow eye.

_**MG'UULWI N'ZOTH ETH'RAZZQI WORG ZZ OOU** _

The skin of the king’s mouth split at the corners as his jaw came unhinged and he began to devour, starting with the beating flesh at the dragon’s neck.

Wrathion bolted up in bed and just barely strangled the yell about to wrench itself from his throat. He sat, panting, pressing a hand to his side. The wound spasmed with a disgusting fire.

He got up, knees shaking, and fetched a shirt from the folded pile on the dresser. His trembling fingers slipped on the pearl buttons and he left most of them undone, padding barefoot into the hallway. Kalecgos’ house was quiet in the early witching hours with his apprentice likely still sleeping. The kitchen was mercifully empty. Wrathion stood in the center of the small room for a moment, rubbing his eyes, as his sand-addled mind struggled to find something to occupy itself with. 

“Wrathion?”

Jaina stood in the doorway, a thin sweater drawn over her night shift, looking concerned. He had not heard her approaching footsteps.

“Are you well?” she asked, leaning forward. “I heard you tossing and turning.”

“Just a strange dream. I’m sorry to have woken you.”

Jaina squinted at him as she folded her arms, looking almost cold.

“…are you certain you’re alright?” she asked, after a moment’s hesitation. “I’ve never heard anyone…move in their sleep like that.”

“Yes, Jaina Proudmoore. Dreams are uncomfortable at times, but of course they can do no real harm.”

Another pang in his side sent a small cramp up his chest. He groaned and leaned against the counter, closing his eyes as he waited for the burning in his muscles to abate.

“Well, since we’re both up, would you like some tea?” Jaina asked, her eyes flicking down to his hand. “I can get some started, if you’d like to go fetch something for the pain.”

“Yes. I admit, that sounds preferable than attempting to return to my bed.”

While Jaina set a pot of water on the stove, activating the rune that served as the heating element, Wrathion went into the bathroom to fetch a potion. He drained the bottle of its contents, feeling the alchemy work almost instantaneously to numb some of the pain. When he came back, the water was already boiling.

“Why don’t we take this outside?” Jaina fetched a pair of cups from the cabinet and passed them into Wrathion’s hands. “I never much liked these houses. They look pretty, but the ventilation is poor. They’re too stuffy for my taste.”

Wrathion took the cups outside while Jaina set a bundle of tea leaves to steep. Kalecgos had a small deck overlooking his garden. Beyond the tops of the trellis, a wide lawn adorned with trees and statues bordered the edge of Dalaran. Traces of the arcane wards that kept the city afloat could be seen against the pale night sky. Wrathion settled into one of the comfortable, pillow-covered chairs near a small white patio table. Jaina soon joined him, carrying the kettle and a small jar of thin, sugar-powdered wafers.

“Kalecgos always keeps a stash of these somewhere,” she said, opening the jar and taking one out to pop into her mouth. “There’s a soothing enchantment worked into the dough. I think they’re actually meant to help small children fall asleep.”

Wrathion took one and let it melt on his tongue. It had the faint taste of lemon.

They sat in silence, watching traces of mana in the air drift across the lawn like fireflies. Wrathion was able to drink his hot tea immediately, cupping it between both of his hands, but Jaina sat with her head leaning against one set of her knuckles as she waited for hers to cool, her feet tucked up on the chair beside her and the hem of her nightgown spilling over the edge of the seat.

“I’ve been having trouble sleeping as well,” she said, after a while.

“I am sorry to hear that.”

Jaina’s brow was tight as she contemplated a trellis of white moonflowers. “I just hope he isn’t in pain.”

“…as do I.”

She cleared her throat. “I take it the meeting with the visiting members of the Accord did not go as you had planned?”

Wrathion grunted. “I was unsure what to expect, but I did not get nearly what I would have wanted out of it. They will not help me.”

Jaina sighed. “We will have to open communications somehow. I’m sure Khadgar tried his best, but there has to be another option other than bowing to the House of Nobles.”

“What other members of the Alliance can we reach out to?”

“I don’t know,” Jaina shook her head. “Khadgar is right, this could split the Alliance apart if our attempts to curry favor lead to a schism in opinion. He will not help us with further negotiations with other Alliance factions if that is our intent. And it would certainly put you in more danger to travel through Alliance territory to do so yourself.”

Wrathion rose to his feet, eyes wide as he paced the length of the path in front of Kalecgos’ porch, holding his teacup.

“There has to be some way to put pressure on Stormwind,” he said. “Anduin cannot be entirely without allies. He is more of a diplomat than a soldier. There must be…”

He stopped. Jaina lifted her head.

“What is it?” she asked.

He turned to face her, red eyes blazing in the shadow of the moon.

“There are others, Lord Proudmoore.”

* * *

Jaina insisted on arranging for a portal, not to the gates of Orgrimmar, but several miles south, near Razor Hill in the dehydrated rocky canyons of Durotar. Her reasoning was that they needed to prepare a caravan to accompany Wrathion’s arrival. She was unfamiliar with the temperament of the newer races on the Horde’s Council, but surely it would only help Wrathion’s petition if he at least made a good impression on the traditional Horde leaders. Left, to Wrathion’s surprise, as she rarely expressed an opinion on the Horde, especially on other orcs, agreed. He thought it best to defer to their judgement on the matter. That was how he found himself standing under the hot morning sun in a sliver of shade from the rickety wooden cart they had procured, listening to the two women debate matters of presentation pertaining to a meat offering.

“The animal should be dead,” Left was shouting, jabbing her fingers over the horizon. “No animals are brought back alive from a proper hunt.”

“The animal should be alive,” Jaina countered, stabbing her own palm with the fingers of the opposite hand to emphasize her words. “Meat spoils quickly in the heat.”

“We will not be on the road for more than an hour,” Left waved at the dusty trail off to the side of where they were parked. “And are you not a frost mage? You could easily keep the meat from spoiling.”

“It will no longer be fresh if I chill it over ice!” Jaina’s voice rose an octave higher. “No orc in Durotar wants to bite into frozen meat! And it would make a better impression if they could see Wrathion both command the beast and execute the kill in front of them. Then he will open its ribs, slice the heart from its chest and take a bite before passing it around to each member of the Council.”

“That is barbaric and outdated,” Left practically spat. Her long hair was tied in a tight braid at the crown of her skull to keep it unsullied from the sweat dripping down her neck. “Even the most traditional orc in the Horde would have abandoned such a ritual ages ago if not for the sake of those _elves_ alone.”

“For Titan’s sake, it’s just food!” Jaina shouted back, wiping her own stranded hair from her brow. “Even elves with delicate constitutions enjoy meat while being quite aware of where it comes from!”

“They take that meat _cooked_.”

Wrathion decided that he’d had enough. He shifted, stirring up clouds of red silt dust as his wings beat and picked up the air. Jaina and Left’s bickering dissolved into the sound of wind rushing over his scales. He enjoyed the beauty of the sun spilling over the red rocks and marshy rivers, sussing out the territory below. He spotted a herd of gazelle that had crossed the river from the Barrens, in a state of panic from two bloodtalon scythemaws that were chasing the group. One was bringing up the rear, waiting for stragglers to snatch for easy food. There was a young gazelle falling farther and farther behind. It was limping and unable to keep pace with the others.

Wrathion descended, silent as a bat in the night, and knocked the scythemaw down with a flick of one wrist. It rolled, scrambling to its feet and roared until it realized what was attacking it, then fled in the opposite direction. The gazelle herd remained oblivious, continuing its mad race to cross the river and escape the second scythemaw. The limping gazelle tripped in the draft from the dragon’s landing and did not rise. Wrathion approached on soft, stalking claws, making soft, soothing rumbling noises in his gullet. He watched as the creature’s flank rose and fell in jagged gasps, foam frothing from its mouth and eyes rolling in terror. Wrathion scooped it up, as gentle as if he were tending to a human child, and took to the air once again. The gazelle was too exhausted to cry out, though Wrathion could feel its small heart fluttering against his palm.

When he landed, he took care to set the gazelle down on a soft patch of sand. Jaina and Left both stared with different degrees of disappointment on their faces as Wrathion returned to his mortal form, brushing dust from his ornate tunic and ensuring his black turban was secure.

“Surely that’s not all you could find?” Jaina asked while Left shook her head and turned away to pace up and down the road. “Some kind of predator would make a stronger impression, preferably the biggest boar or wolf you can—”

Wrathion held up a hand and Jaina fell silent. 

“Thank you for your council,” he said, feeling a flush rise to his already sun-kissed cheeks as he knelt down to scoop up the gazelle in his arms. “I have made my decision. This creature will come with us to Orgrimmar. Alive.”

“Very well,” Jaina said, her voice cool.

From the road, Left halted her vigil and exchanged a skeptical glance with him, but nodded in agreement. Wrathion set the gazelle down in the back of the cart atop a bundle of tent canvas. He ran his hand along the soft, bristled fur covering the creature’s head, fingers sliding between the bumps where two small horns were growing.

The ride to the iron gates of Orgrimmar was long and hot. Left drove the wagon while Wrathion and Jaina flanked her on a pair of massive gray wolves. Jaina struggled at first to gain dominance, but within minutes had her wolf under control as she led the way. Wrathion could sense his own mount’s fear; the animal smelled his draconic blood through his mortal visage.

They were stopped a good few yards from the gates by a cluster of three orcs and two trolls standing guard over the road. The orcs all looked at Left in suspicion. Left glared back, mouth pressed into a thin line, and she remained motionless with the reins. Jaina announced Wrathion’s arrival in rough but perfectly understandable Orcish and negotiated their way inside.

There was a great deal of waiting. The Council was not yet in session, leaving them to sit in the shadow of the canyon that cradled the Valley of Strength. Jaina’s presence drew many eyes and a varying range of expressions, which she bore with an air of grace. Left passed around her canteen of water as they watched a group of orc children playing in the grass near the market stalls. The smell of charring meat and wood wafted through the air, among many other heat-stroked scents. Wrathion managed to bargain for some greens from a passing tauren and sat cross-legged in the cart beside the gazelle, feeding it and stroking its flank to soothe it.

At last, they were approached by an orc guard, dressed in leather and spike-adorned plate. Jaina motioned to take the gazelle, but Wrathion refused, cradling the creature in his own arms instead. Jaina turned to Left, who only shrugged. They fell into place on either side of the Black Prince and the orc escorted them into Grommash Hold.

The Hold was warm, but not unpleasantly so, for a structure of metal that spent the majority of its days in the sun. Goblin engineers had designed the structures of Orgrimmar well, taking into consideration the placement of buildings beneath the canyon’s available shade and using specially designed rooftops to disperse the heat. The walls of the metal and stone hall were adorned with Darkspear and Zandalari fetishes in between a series of tapestries from each tribe that now fell beneath the Horde’s red banner. Lanterns adorned the ceiling on chains, illuminating the windowless hall with soft light. They once held only fire, and would overwhelm the ceiling with a suffocating haze of black smoke, but now they bore the soft purple and white glow of sin’dorei and shal’dorei illumination spells, orbited by floating crystals of colored glass. Pandaren incense burned from ornate wood and jade holders, filling the space with a sharp but pleasant smell.

The great hall once held a giant throne with mammoth bones and ivory tusks. All of this had been stripped out and replaced with cushion seats arranged in an almost complete circle on the stone floor. Embroidered tauren rugs decorated and padded the ground under the cushions. On these seats lounged the sitting members of the Horde Council.

When delivering his reports from the Speaker, Wrathion was used to meeting with one or two, admittedly bored, representatives. If Magni sent him with explicit instructions to whisper into the ear of someone with connections to the shamans and druids, then he would arrange a meeting with either Rokhan, Baine, or Thrall. The Horde was busy in the wake of the Fourth War and while they were just as concerned with the worrying problems in Silithus, like Stormwind, they had their own cities to rebuild, supplies to replenish, and refugees to support. The volatile situation with the fractured factions of Forsaken, all vying for leadership, alone was sapping much of the Horde’s time and resources. Never had a representative from each Horde tribe sat in the same room to receive Wrathion. When he stepped over the leather mat in the center of the Hold, for the first time, twelve sets of eyes were upon him. 

Baine Bloodhoof sat more or less at the head of the circle, towering over everyone, even seated, looking almost angry. To his left and right sat Thrall and Lor’themar Theron. Thrall’s brows were furrowed, a strange, observant expression on his grizzled face that Wrathion was helpless to interpret. He was leaning with his chin resting on one hand, fingers rubbing his dark salt-and-pepper beard. Lor’themar looked comfortable and at home, lounging over the pillows with one leg outstretched, the other foot tucked near his hip. A pipe dangled from his mouth; his one eye glared through the soft white mist he exhaled, as if Wrathion were trespassing in his living quarters. Thalyssra sat to Lor’themar’s other side, almost in meditation with her legs crossed and hands dangling loosely over her knees and wearing a more or less calm expression. The lavender tattoos on her bare arms and legs caught the glint of the enchanted light.

Rokhan, a rugged Darkspear wearing armor made from rib bones along with white and black war paint on his face, sat hunched at Thrall’s other side. He fiddled with a shaman fetish between steady, trained fingers, his keen eyes flicking to and from the Black Prince and the other leaders, as if he were scouting for social cues. To his other side sat Geya’rah, chewing on tobacco as she glowered, sizing Wrathion up for either debate or combat. A small tin dish sat next to her feet to hold her spit.

Three representatives from the Forsaken clustered together, appearing uncomfortable with sharing such a small space. Calia Menethil sat on her knees with her gray hands tightly clasped in her lap, back poised and ramrod straight, discomfort apparent in her glowing golden eyes. Flanking her were representatives from the two other factions; Wrathion struggled to recall their names and denominations. There seemed to be new ones every few months or so. Calia had earned her followers mostly by simply having survived the tiny civil wars the longest, as if she was protected by the Light’s divine grace. Wrathion almost missed the glint of Lilian Voss’ yellow eyes from where she stood far behind them in the shadows, leaning against the wall with her thin arms crossed.

Ji Firepaw was also smoking. Wrathion recognized the familiar pandaren style of pipe tucked into his mouth. He had a sarcastic expression on his face, a hair’s breadth away from a smirk, gazing at him with neither malice or pleasure, but serene acceptance. The goblin Gazlowe looked uncomfortable on his cushion, squinting at Wrathion as if he were some kind of instrument to figure out. Kiro looked more or less at home, tail swishing to betray his curiosity as he peered up at them with a guarded look.

A palpable tension hung in the air, thicker than the incense.

Left cleared her throat and spoke, the reverberation of her strong voice somewhat absorbed by the tapestries and adornments in the metal and stone walls.

“His Royal Highness, Prince Wrathion of the Black Dragonflight, the uncorrupted son of Neltharion the Earth-Warder, who died as Deathwing the Destroyer, and Nyxondra, wishes to petition the Council of the Horde.”

Wrathion bowed, somewhat hampered by the gazelle still cradled in his arms. The beast squirmed in temporary distress, but quickly settled. Left’s hand swept to the side, gesturing towards Jaina.

“His petition is supported by Lord Admiral of Kul Tiras, Lord Jaina Proudmoore.”

Jaina bowed.

Wrathion stepped forward, his fingers pressing into the flank of the gazelle to reassure the creature one last time before he released it. The delicate hooves made damp clopping noises as the gazelle stumbled, struggling to find its feet on the scarred leather mat.

“I bring the most honorable Council of the Horde a humble token of my goodwill and intent,” he spoke, his soft voice curling as his gaze swept around the room. He took great care to make steadfast eye contact with each and every leader. “A gazelle from the Barrens, which stands before you only through an act of mercy, rescued from the jaws of a scythemaw.”

The gazelle settled in place and stood, frozen, but somewhat curious as it stared at Baine, dark eyes unblinking. While his hearts pounded against the walls of his ribs, Wrathion noted several faces turning to look at the troll from the Darkspear tribe. Thrall inclined his head when Rokhan locked wary eyes with him. After a moment, the troll lowered his fetish and raised an empty hand.

“Let him petition the Council,” Rokhan rumbled.

“I second the motion,” Thrall’s booming voice swept up in Rokhan’s wake.

All heads nodded in agreement.

“The Council of the Horde agrees to hear the petition of Wrathion, the Black Prince,” Lor’themar announced, taking the pipe briefly from his mouth. He used the hand that held the smoking pipe to gesture towards some of the empty cushions which completed the circle, the closest in the circumference to the Hold’s entrance. “Please, take a seat and join us.”

Wrathion turned, following Left and Jaina. He folded his legs and sank down into a cushion between them. Baine was on his hooves, approaching the gazelle. It was a sight to see him looming in the center of the room. The small beast was so overwhelmed and out of her element that she did not run at his approach, nor did she struggle when he scooped her into his hands. He carried her to an attendant, a woman from the Darkspear tribe, who caught the gazelle and carried her from the room. A blood elf began to pour arcwine out into goblets which were passed around the circle.

“Speak, Black Prince,” Baine bade the dragon, after they had all taken their first drink in unison.

Wrathion’s posture was at its most poised, but he took care to maintain an air of casualness, to smooth out any hint of desperation or even desire. It was important to appear indifferent, as if he did not care what the outcome of this meeting would be. The arcwine burned in his throat and chest, spurring his words.

“Esteemed leaders of the Horde,” he began. “I have come before you with the most distressing news. Stormwind is in conflict: it seems that a coup has removed High King Anduin Wrynn Wrynn from his position and now King Genn Greymane sits upon the Lion’s Seat.”

“So we’ve heard.” Baine had resumed his cushion, tail flicking as he settled back in. “Stormwind seems to have closed itself off, even to other members of the Alliance. I must confess, I am glad to have you here to put some of these rumors to rest.”

“It would be my pleasure to quell what I can,” Wrathion said with an incline of his head, laying his gloved hand across his breast. “It is true that Greymane now holds control of Stormwind. My agents and I have been in contact with him through a neutral third party.”

“Khadgar,” Jaina spoke, meeting Wrathion’s eye. “The Kirin Tor has graciously allowed us space to negotiate.”

“We have heard as much,” Baine concurred. “Sources confirm that whatever is occurring in Stormwind, Greymane does seem to be in control of the Court at this point in time. We do not yet know what he wants. As we said, the city has closed itself off even to other members of the Alliance, and we are aware of Greymane’s aversion to the Horde under normal circumstances. What we are having difficulty piecing together is the reason why. Rumors vary. The most likely explanation seems to stem from Gilneas’ desire to make amends with the kaldorei, to keep them in the Alliance.”

“Ah,” Wrathion said, feeling a strange lump in his chest, nestled next to the tendrils of mana from the arcwine. “Yes. Allow me to explain. This situation is, I am sorry to say, because of me. Stormwind’s House of Nobles is under the impression that my reports from the Speaker had…ulterior motives, pertaining to my flight’s history with usurping power from the monarchy.”

“Is that so?” Thrall’s voice abruptly cut in. “Strange. We heard it was because they discovered you were fucking him.”

Wrathion froze. He felt the blood rise to his face as his hearts began to pound. The denial stuck on his tongue, thick against the roof of his mouth. He could only glare at the shaman. He swallowed the smoke rising in his throat with another drink of wine and his eyes dropped to study the floor.

“If you’re here to ask a favor of the Horde,” Thrall continued, his voice lowered to where it was almost courteous. “I suggest that you remain honest with us, Black Prince.”

Wrathion’s limbs grew numb. He swallowed again, his face burning. 

“Is it true?” Thalyssra’s ethereal voice traveled from the opposite side of the room.

Wrathion fought the urge to run, to fly as far as his wings could carry him. He would flee across Kalimdor and leave Left and Jaina to deal with the chaos in the wake of his departure.

“It is.”

Someone gasped. Wrathion’s eyes flickered up to find everyone else in the room had turned to look at Calia Menethil, whose pale hands had risen to cover her mouth. Her golden eyes were wide. The Forsaken at her elbows were smiling wickedly.

“Is it not uncommon for dragons to take consorts?” Lor’themar asked, his voice curious and light.

Calia seemed distraught at so many eyes upon her. She gave the desperate appearance of one who wished to glance at everyone, anyone, if it meant she could avoid exchanging glances with Wrathion.

“…yes…” she said, her voice hesitant. “Of course. This is common knowledge. But…Anduin Wrynn…he is a priest…”

Her voice trailed off.

“What of it?” Baine goaded. “The tauren have many priests. I cannot fathom any of them having such a reaction to this event.”

“Indeed,” Lor’themar grumbled. “This is surely not a revelation that would provoke something so dramatic as a coup? I would think the human race should consider it a great honor that a dragon showed favor for their king, the tumultuous history of the Black Dragonflight aside.”

Wrathion sharply turned to look at Left, who met his gaze with a similar one of confusion, her brows furrowed together ever so slightly. When he turned to try and glean information from Jaina, his hearts sank when he found her staring straight ahead, jaw clenched. Her hands were similarly clenched, knuckles bulging through the soft leather of her gloves. Wrathion felt a coil of fear roil in his gut. He had miscalculated something. Something terrible.

“I am afraid that you find me similarly at a loss,” he said, a smile jumping to his face as he raised his wrist to give a casual flick of his hand. “Of course, I was aware that it was not…the usual course for the King of Stormwind to take one such as myself as a mate, but surely there is precedent for this that does not require the intervention of an independent militia…”

“The young Lion of Stormwind is not merely High King,” the Forsaken to Calia’s left rasped. “He is High Priest of the Church of the Holy Light, a position that requires an extra degree of scrutiny amongst the clergy of Stormwind. He would have likely taken certain vows when he was crowned. Including vows against lying in bed with another man.”

“As the scriptures state, _for a man to lie with another man is detestable,_ ” the other Forsaken said, his voice hoarse.

Calia nodded her head in concurrence while the Forsakens’ laughter rang across the hall, rasping.

“You seem shocked, young dragon prince,” the Forsaken to Calia’s right said. “Has your wicked mouth at last been put to rest?”

“Enough,” Ji Firepaw interjected, slicing a hand through the air before him. “I believe we get the idea. It sounds like the outcome is he will likely be relieved of his duties, and a new leader will be chosen for Stormwind and the Alliance.”

“Still sounds like a lot of speculation to me,” Gazlowe grumbled, nostrils flaring as he sniffed his cup of wine with visible disgust. “I don’t think we’re operating with a full deck here. This guy is just as out of the loop as the rest of us.”

Heat once again flared to Wrathion’s ears and smoke was curling. He felt a touch on his arm and realized the hand belonged to Jaina.

“The Black Prince has come to request the Horde’s aid in rescuing Anduin Wrynn,” Jaina said.

Thrall stared at her. Baine’s stern look finally dropped to one of great concern. Thalyssra leaned over to murmur in Lor’themar’s ear, and he tilted his face to offer his own quiet words in exchange.

“That is a…significant request,” Thrall stated, finally. His eyes were still fixed upon Jaina.

“I am aware,” Jaina said, lifting her chin, staring him down. “But we make it regardless. Anduin has dedicated most of his life to securing peaceful relations between the Horde and the Alliance. It would be a poor way to return the favor should the Horde turn their back on him after signing a peace treaty in good faith.”

The Forsaken leaders, save for Calia, laughed. Jaina raised her voice, shoulders lifting.

“This is no jest. Where would the Horde be now, had Anduin not risked treason in freeing Saurfang from his own stockades? In doing so, the king took a great blow to the goodwill his people felt for the crown, and in general across the Alliance. He did so again when he spared soldiers and resources to aid in the second Siege of Orgrimmar from Sylvanas, at the height of the war when both were strained. He did not do the same for the kaldorei.”

It was Jaina’s turn to look about the room. Wrathion saw the members of the Horde bristle under her gaze.

“He might not even be in this position had he declined to take action to support the Horde resistance,” she explained. “He has had great difficulty in placating his people, who are hungry and nursing both wounds and egos.”

“All of our people are hungry,” Kiro said. “It was to the Alliance’s benefit to end the war sooner rather than later. The Horde resistance ensured that happened.”

“Is this how you repay Anduin?” Jaina was nearly shouting. “You would abandon him to be devoured by his own people?”

Silence. Baine looked as if he were in pain.

“We must deliberate,” Thrall said. “Please, take what comforts you can in our Valley, Prince Wrathion, Lord Proudmoore. We will discuss this matter and give you an answer.”

* * *

Wrathion paced the length of the patch of dirt he had claimed in the shade outside the maw of Grommash Hold. Jaina sat perched upon a frosted mage’s disk, legs crossed, drawing a rune puzzle in the air to occupy her mind and pass the time. A small cluster of trolls and orcs stood off to the side, watching her motions with curiosity. Left obtained some meat and beer from a nearby inn, which Wrathion had no appetite for. She sat carving into a cylinder of jagged wood cut from a fallen tree branch. 

Hours passed. 

Wrathion spent a portion of them dozing by Left’s side, taking the occasional sip from a potion bottle, the heat making his head feel as if it were stuffed with cotton. The throbbing in the wound at his side did not go away and made it difficult to enjoy proper repose. At some point, Left pulled a stick of medicinal bark from her pouch and gave it to him to chew. It sometimes frightened him how perceptive the quiet orc was.

At last, Thrall’s hulking form emerged from the Hold’s cavernous doorway. Jaina dispelled the mage’s disk, dropping with elegance to her feet. Left remained seated and eyed the other orc as he approached, cutting into her makeshift sculpture with more vigor. Thrall stood before them, nodding in greeting to Wrathion, then to Jaina in kind. The look on his face when he turned to the archmage made Wrathion’s jaw clench in fear.

“The Horde cannot go to war with the Alliance over the fate of Anduin Wrynn.”

Thrall’s voice held no room for compromise. Wrathion felt as if his chest had been plunged into ice. The words unleashed the despair that he had kept bubbling in the depths of this chest. He had known from the start that this was a fool’s errand. His picture of approaching the gates of Stormwind with the Horde’s army to his back was only a fantasy.

“However,” Wrathion looked up, startled by the continuing sound of Thrall’s voice, and he saw a ferocity in the orc’s eye. “If he survives this ordeal, if you are able to extradite him, he will have safe passage on Horde lands. We will grant him immunity, publicly, as gratitude for what he has done, for as long as this Council stands. We will interpret any action from the Alliance to harm him as an act of war. That, the Horde can promise you. Our way of showing gratitude to peacekeeper Anduin Wrynn for his part in making the Horde what it is today.”

Wrathion stood for a moment, utterly stunned. It was, he supposed, better than anything he could have reasonably hoped for. His mind raced as it digested this information. This was something to work with. Another possibility to mull over.

All he needed to do was whisk Anduin out of Stormwind and into Horde territory. From wherever he was being held within its walls. 

“You have my gratitude, chieftain,” Wrathion said, his voice not quite as strong as he would have liked, the plans fading to the back of his mind. He placed a hand on his chest and bowed deeply. After he straightened, Thrall acknowledged him with a nod.

“Go forth safely, Earth-Warder.”

Wrathion’s hearts stopped beating.

“I’m afraid you are mistaken,” the dragon said. “I am not the one who bears that title.”

“Oh?” Thrall’s brows furrowed, once again.

“Indeed,” Wrathion uttered. “My brother and I are still in deliberation if it will be one of us or a future addition to our flight, however unlikely that may be.”

“…my mistake,” Thrall said, his face holding a strange expression. “I…am a little behind. I only know for certain when that title slipped from me. I lost some of that power after the destruction of the Dragon Soul. I lost the rest of it when I abandoned Azeroth for Outland.”

Jaina took Thrall’s hands in her own, her small, soft leather gloves dwarfed by his strong fingers. She looked directly into his eyes, an expression of grief on her face.

“Thank you, Go’el.” 

She sounded as if she were holding back tears. Thrall shifted so that his hands cupped her own. He squeezed them, his face complicated as he struggled to speak.

“I am sorry I could not do more for your nephew,” he said, softly. “Take care, Jaina.”

Jaina spent a moment staring after Thrall as he turned and walked away.

“Let us be done with this place,” Left cut in, throwing her unfinished wooden sculpture into the dirt and dry grass. “Proudmoore.”

Jaina’s head snapped back to attention. “…yes?”

“Can you summon…?”

Jaina’s hand shot forward and a silence spell took the words from Left’s mouth. The orc’s eyes widened, but Wrathion put a hand on her shoulder to stop her from drawing her dagger.

“Apologies,” Jaina said, her eyes wide. She looked shaken. Wrathion had to admit he did not feel put together himself. “It would be unwise to summon a portal here. There are ambassadors from the Alliance in Orgrimmar and our presence most certainly has drawn their attention. We are safe while in Horde lands, but I do not want them to know any more about our whereabouts, for your sake, Black Prince.”

Wrathion nodded in deference. They gathered their mounts and the wagon, to sell again once they reached Razor Hill. The ride back was cooler; the sun was beginning to set.

The sound of thundering hoofbeats drew them around. Three kodos approached, each bearing a tauren on its back. Wrathion realized that the one at the head of the formation was none other than Baine, and he brought his wolf around to meet them.

“Black Prince,” Baine inclined his great head. “Forgive me for pursuing you, but I wished to have a word in private.”

His ears twitched, eyes mournful. 

“I am…concerned for Anduin’s wellbeing. I could not let you go without asking if you had any other news, news that you did not feel comfortable disclosing before the rest of the Council?”

Wrathion shook his head, the tail of his turban falling over his shoulder. “No, High Chieftain. I truly do not know any more about his situation.”

Baine nodded, and Wrathion caught traces of grief on his face. He motioned to one of his attendants, who handed him a small leather pouch, which he in turn presented to the dragon.

“If…when you do next see him, please, send him my best. If you can get this to him through any means…this is medicine from my tribe. It helps with aches and pains, particularly the type that comes after the rains. Have them steeped in hot water and drank, like tea.”

Wrathion accepted the bundle, his throat closing due to the dust and the strange emotion that now wracked his mind. He met Baine’s eyes and the tauren merely nodded, giving him a deep bow from the seat of his mount.

“May the Earth Mother walk with you, Prince Wrathion,” Baine said. “Know that the tauren tribes of Mulgore will be praying to the ancestors for your success.”

* * *

The walls of Kalecgos’ study were enchanted with frost charms to keep the space cool and free from moisture, protecting the delicate books and scrolls it contained. The blue dragon had lent Wrathion the use of his desk for the duration of his stay, but Wrathion found the constant humming of the strange, unfamiliar enchantments in the room to be a constant distraction. Kalecgos’ library contained a multitude of knowledge that would have taken Wrathion the better part of a year to even begin to parse through, each volume a treasure of mathematical equations and secrets of the physical universe. Yet he found little satisfaction in distracting himself with its pages. The tea he’d taken with him had gone lukewarm, and there was so much mana in the air the liquid had become infused. It thickened and turned a strange, oil-purple color just from sitting on the desk.

Wrathion grunted as he eased himself to his feet, stretching his arms and rolling his head to release the tension from his neck. He closed his eyes as he savored the delicious sensation of tight muscles shifting into fresh positions. He picked up the ceramic mug and turned away from his desk.

An unsettling feeling settled over his shoulders. The back of his mind pricked with the traces of an electric enchantment. His stomach felt as if he had just taken a downward plummet through the air, yet his feet were still firmly on the ground. Though every book, every shelf, every strange shimmering portrait on the wall still looked exactly the same, Wrathion knew in an instant that he was no longer in Kalecgos’ study.

The raven who had arrived in Dalaran on Khadgar’s shoulder was perched on the opposite windowsill, obfuscated in the layers of sheer curtains that rustled gently in the breeze. 

In the blink of an eye, the raven unfolded itself, feathers falling into a long robe as it stood up, the high heels of a pair of rich leather boots clicking lightly on the floor like bird claws. Long black hair fell to his waist like silk. A tall man, dressed in black with rich red accents approached, arms outstretched as if he were about to ask for an embrace. He had a frightening dark, jagged scar running around his neck, like a choker.

“It breaks my heart to see you looking so sad, dearest dragon prince.” 

Wrathion was knocked off his feet as a plush, high-backed armchair manifested and swept itself up beneath to take him in its seat. The momentum sent his upper body rocking forward over his knees. When he next looked up, a small ornate table and a second armchair had also appeared.

“Come, now, let’s see if we can’t put a smile on that handsome face of yours.”

Medivh conjured a bejeweled copper goblet and filled it to the brim with wine. Wrathion’s fingers twitched in empty air for a brief moment before finding purchase on the stem, the mug he’d been holding now in the former Guardian’s hand. Medivh looked down at the lukewarm contents in disgust before the entire thing disintegrated with a blue spark and a curl of acrid smoke. Wrathion tried his best to appear unaffected, as if he had merely wandered into this pocket dimension in response to an invitation. He did not sip the wine, but instead leaned back in the chair, crossing his ankle over one knee.

“You may do your best to try, Guardian,” he said with grace, stroking his beard as he looked up at the mage, red eyes reflecting the faint shimmer haloing his body. “But I cannot promise that you will see it. I would appreciate a bit of your company and wise council, all the same.”

“Excellent!”

In the next moment, Medivh was seated in the opposite chair, the thick rings on his fingers glinting in the lamplight as he used a second enchantment to pour himself a glass. Instead of taking the goblet, it floated within arm’s reach to the side of the chair.

“Now, tell me,” the Guardian steepled his fingers. “What conundrum troubles the brilliant Prince Wrathion?”

Wrathion turned his eyes downwards toward his glass, allowing himself to release the smallest sigh. “…I’m sure you’ve already heard.”

“Yes, yes, of course I’ve heard.” Medivh made a face as he flicked his fingers, as if to brush dust off a shelf. “The young king and his dragon lover separated by political forces beyond their control. It’s quite the touching tale of forbidden romance. I was honestly more than a little hurt, Black Prince, that your affection for the gentle Lion of Stormwind never once came up during your stay at Karazhan. After all, you patiently listened to me go on about my own relationship woes for days…”

Wrathion struggled to come up with something to say. Judging by the infuriating twinkle in Medivh’s eye, he did not expect a response.

“Wrathion, Wrathion, your tender heart is truly a mountain of secrets.” With a gesture, Medivh’s goblet was raised in Wrathion’s direction, as if in toast, before the Guardian took a drink. “How very fitting for the new Earth-Warder.”

Wrathion stopped breathing. Thrall’s mistake was one thing. Medivh…

“Answer me, Guardian, why do you mock me with that title?” Wrathion attempted to remain calm by focusing on the task of turning his heavy goblet around within the palm of his hand.

Medivh cackled: a low, jagged sound that matched a pattern akin to a bird’s caw.

“Are you still feigning denial, my friend?” he asked. “Come, now. I know Azeroth does not execute these transitions of power with much ceremony or pomp, but surely you must have realized by now.”

Wrathion closed his eyes. 

He tried to push back the feeling—

_—the drumming pounding, rivers of molten lava—_

—the mounting feeling that had been building beneath him over the past week, ever since the shouting match with Ebyssian—

_—surging and ready to erupt._

Medivh—

_—deep below the mountains, streams run thick with the silt and salt of the earth—_

—the conjurer’s words made it impossible to ignore. 

The feeling was of Her.

Azeroth’s call, like a song, the warmest resonance, rippled deep in his bones, as comforting and terrifying as if it had always and never been there. He could map the deep veins of azerite and magma of her blood veins in his mind's eye. He felt the movement of those currents far, far beneath the floating city, underneath the ground. The harmony he had struggled for years to master now coursed through him, every flutter of his hearts, every cell attuned to the deep, primordial rhythms of the sleeping Titan. She was _listening to him_. Solid stone, rock, and ore, all would bend to him, he only needed to give the suggestion. He envisioned the black earth rising up beneath the streets of Stormwind City, swallowing it, burying alive every soldier who...

Wrathion took a single, deep breath. 

He then took another. 

On the third exhale, he pushed the thought from his mind. With it, the dark whispers from the Old Gods abated. Their eyes had been upon him with a focus that they had never had before.

When he opened his own, Medivh was still there, but the room had shifted, the lamps darker. The bookcases were arranged in a slightly different pattern. A hot fire now crackled in the mantle. The portraits on the walls looked in different directions and the landscape paintings showed different seasons. A beautiful, soft rug embroidered with the patterns of the universe was now resting beneath them. Medivh’s eyes were bright with interest.

“So,” he murmured, his fingers twirling a coin. “After all of your years spent fighting to save Azeroth and taking oaths to redeem the legacy of the Black Dragonflight, the destruction of Stormwind City is the first thing that the son of Deathwing thinks to do with the power of the Earth-Warder?”

Shaken, Wrathion rose to his feet. When he turned around, both chairs were gone. He paced towards the edge of the shadows in the room.

“You truly love this man in a great and terrible way, don’t you?” Medivh was right by his shoulder, trailing him like a shadow. “That you would consider burning down everything he holds dear to save him?”

A vision of Anduin seated in Stormwind’s orphanage rose from the shadows. The young king sat surrounded by a small cluster of adoring children, waiting at his feet, a pair on his lap, another leaning with their head resting on his arm, all listening to him read out loud from a book of Winter’s Veil stories. Wrathion quietly sighed at the sight of him. He seemed softer, in Medivh’s vision.

“I will petition the other leaders of the Alliance,” Wrathion said. “I already have Lord Jaina Proudmoore’s support from Kul Tiras…”

An amalgamation of the Alliance’s capital cities unfolded from the darkness. The Exodar, Ironforge, Mechagon, the ruins of Teldrassil and Gilneas, all meshed together like pieces of a poorly-assembled puzzle.

“If you choose to sow this discord, dissent amongst the leaders regarding the trial of King Wrynn versus the Kingdom of Stormwind will do to this already strained Alliance what no orc clan has managed to accomplish. You will tear it apart.”

A vision of Anduin, dressed like an angel of war in his gleaming white-gold plate and blue patterned cloth, pleading with the Night Warrior. The young king’s pale, worry-crossed face was strained, tension apparent in his expression. Tyrande’s was fraught with similar lines, her dark eyes filled with the reflection of stars and despair. The Prophet Velen watched the exchange from a distance, worry lining his broad brow as he twisted his staff in his long, gnarled hands.

“In its wake, the civil war will embolden the Alliance hawks to break King Wrynn’s brittle peace treaty and the Horde and the Alliance will enter their great and terrible Fifth War.”

Wrathion closed his eyes for a brief moment against the visions of Azeroth, once again rent with devastation from siege weapons and mass graves.

“Neither of you desire this outcome,” Medivh’s voice was inescapable. “The redeemed son of Deathwing could never purposefully take action that would destroy years of his work to protect Azeroth, certainly not for the sake of a few kisses in bed. And neither would Anduin Wrynn.”

“I will find a way to extract him discreetly,” Wrathion declared. “I will take him away without the involvement of either faction. It will be a kidnapping executed by a neutral party.”

“But how?” Medivh countered. “Stormwind’s gates are locked tight, the king surely held at the center of a labyrinth of guards. Double the amount of watchers are at every post and street corner. Every eye seen and unseen in that city is looking for signs of someone, anyone who would dare to attempt the maze to rescue the poor king.”

“I will carry out a campaign to infiltrate the city. I will feed a slow and steady stream of my Blacktalon Agents until we have the means to carry him from there on our shoulders.”

“They will fail.”

An image of Right, standing with her hands tied behind her back and a noose around her neck, jaw set square and a determined look on her face. She was flanked by two other agents in an identical predicament. Wrathion watched in horror as a hangman approached and pulled a lever to release the trap door beneath their feet.

“Stop this at once!” Wrathion bellowed, storming forward and with a wave of his arms, dispelled the horrific illusion of Right and his agents strangling to death. “Why are you tormenting me with these images?”

“I am merely providing visual aids,” the Guardian looked almost hurt, his shoulders rolling to ruffle the feathers of the cloak around his shoulders. “I thought we once agreed that such illusions can bolster reasoning capabilities?”

The study, mercifully, came back into focus. Wrathion felt his boots once again settle on the carpet, though the illusion of stars was now gone from its weave.

“There must be another way.” Wrathion turned around, searching for either the man or the raven. “I am tired, I must get some rest. Thank you for your advice, I will…”

Medivh was nowhere to be seen.

* * *

The cave was sweltering with the sweat of Azeroth. In the pitch blackness, Wrathion crawled forward on his belly, his flanks scraping against the walls of the small tunnel. The juts in the rock tore away pieces of scale and skin. He struggled but could not shift into his mortal form, nor could he stop moving. Urgency spurred him on, while behind him the walls were painted with streaks of his blood. Anduin was somewhere ahead, waiting for him. He could not stop.

At last, the transformation tipped over, and Wrathion stumbled to his mortal hands and knees. As he fell, the cavern illuminated from the molten light of the rivers of magma that poured forth around him. He was no longer in a tunnel but a temple. The stone carvings that rose before him bore the crests of ancient primordial dwarves, a civilization that spent the entirety of its life without ever seeing the sun. There was no sign of the king. But…

“Father,” Wrathion croaked.

Neltharion loomed before him, in the space behind the temple, impossibly large. He was the size of a planet. Beneath the span of his tattered orange wings there were multitudes.

“You know where he is,” From Neltharion’s jaw dropped rivers of hot, liquid fire and blood as he spoke, eyes wide and baring Wrathion’s soul. “I know you can hear him screaming in his tomb.”

Wrathion stared in horror at the carvings. The thirteen pairs of stone dwarven eyes gazed back at him, unblinking. Behind them was a wall of solid earth that ran for miles.

He heard himself say the word _no_ over and over again as his bare hands clawed at the wall. The stone did not budge; the most he could do was cause gravel to rain down. The attempt to dig only tore at his skin as if it would pull away from bone. Neltharion’s chuckle reverberated in his skull, drowning out the sound of Anduin suffocating. There was no escape from the other dragon’s mocking words.

“What troubles you, O Great Warder of Azeroth? Is the power of the Earth Aspect not quite what it used to be?”

Wrathion beat his bloody fist into the stone, fangs out as he snarled and whirled around. He tore his fingers through his hair, shouting and cursing in frustration as he paced the length of the pathway.

“Child.”

Wrathion whipped around and found himself standing chest-to-chest with…no longer a dragon, but a man, yellow eyes glowing over an iron jaw melted into the cracked, mutated flesh of his face.

“You know what you must do to save him.”

In his blistered black hands was a gold…was it also black?…disk. Wrathion felt his body seize up, jaw dropping as he cried out in protest and his hand shot out to stop him. N’zoth’s ink-thick tendrils shot from the ground and tore open his ribs from the center out as Neltharion plunged the Dragon Soul into his chest. Lava flooded up from the Black Prince’s throat and dribbled out his mouth as his lower jaw melted away.

The earth split open.

Wrathion awoke to his throat burning with the force from his loud, bellowing cries.

From what felt like a small corner of his mind, he was just lucid enough to watch as his body flung itself from the bed and paced the room, swept up in a mindless panic, hands shaking as they pressed against his solid, unbroken chest. His blood ran hot and pumping while his hearts beat wildly out of control. He felt as if he might pass out again from the lack of air. He was halfway through a transformation, right there in the center of the small bedroom, when the sound of his name and Left’s firm arms wrapping around his waist brought him back to reality.

He sank to his knees on the cool mosaic-tiled floor before the orc. For a moment he could do nothing but wheeze and grip her shoulders as she rubbed his back and arms. The scales receded under her fingers. The horns slipped back beneath his skull, tangled hair shifting into place. The tears in the skin over his shoulder blades sealed closed over the fading wings that slipped back into the bones of his back.

“Hush,” Wrathion heard the Orcish word for _little dragon_. “My Prince, you’re awake now. It was just a dream.”

The terror dulled too quickly, leaving him shaking and numb. He ran his fingers across his eyes to wipe away the hot tears before the realization of what had happened truly registered. Left’s hand cupped the side of his jaw and he looked up to meet her eyes, filled only with concern and understanding. Shame gripped him and he broke away, pushing Left with a little more force than he had intended as he rose to his feet on quivering knees. Out of the corner of his eye, he only just caught the look of hurt on her face before she respectfully turned away to give him privacy and was hidden by a shadow from the window.

He whipped around to leave the room and almost jumped out of his skin at the sight of Jaina’s face, white as the nightgown she wore, bloodshot blue eyes wide and round. Her mage’s sword was out and she looked halfway through casting some kind of shield spell. Before she could speak, Wrathion flew past her, taking silent steps down the stairs and into the kitchen.

He splashed his face with water, letting it run down his bare shoulders and chest. No amount of scrubbing seemed to shake the grease from his skin. The memory of Neltharion’s face burned behind his eyelids. He stood for a moment, leaning against the basin, staring at the moon through the open window, pale bluish light spilling over him. Dalaran looked so peaceful, the lamps burned with soft flames through panes of frosted pink glass. He wondered if Anduin had ever seen them. They had never spoken of Dalaran, but surely he had been at least once to visit his aunt while she led the Kirin Tor….

“Wrathion.”

Left was in the kitchen, holding out a vial. Within it, the ruby liquid of a healing potion glinted.

“I do not require a potion,” Wrathion pushed it aside only to have Left thrust it further forward.

“You are still healing,” she insisted. “You know that strain on your body always increases the intensity of the nightmares.”

He took the potion from Left’s hand and downed it in a single gulp. The acidic taste burned in the back of his mouth, but almost instantly, he felt warm relief spread through his limbs. The ache that he had become accustomed to abated.

He spent the rest of the night on the porch, staring at a pair of open pages from one of Kalecgos’ books.

* * *

Wrathion blew past the clouds, the horizon, climbing higher and higher into the night sky. Suramar stretched like a lavender sea beneath him, growing dimmer and fainter until it was a mere star within the inky black Great Sea. He flew until his breath became short from the lack of air and he allowed himself to melt into his mortal form. He hung for a moment, staring with mortal eyes into the impossibly vast night sky before tipping backwards, wind tearing through his hair and white shirt. He spread his arms and let himself fall, head-first, down towards Azeroth.

As he descended, hearts pounding as the air and clouds blew past him, Alexstraza’s words returned, unbidden.

_Surely there will be another._

He tried to consider this.

He tried to recall the times he and Anduin had fought, truly fought, when their relationship was held together by only the barest threads. The brief, awful moments when the other man’s words had cut him to his core and temporarily stripped him of his humanity. There was no shortage of them to rifle through, particularly in the wake of his reappearance. It had not been easy to regain the king’s trust and the pain from his past betrayal cut deep. But, as the earth rose towards him, there was only a single memory Wrathion cared to conjure.

He’d risen from his own bed in the middle of the night, approaching the prince’s bedroom. Varian’s hand-chosen guards took turns watching the prince’s door at night, but the dragon’s presence had become something of a regularity and the guard barely gave him a nod as he slipped through the sliding doors.

He found the prince, as he always was in those early days, bound in layers of bandages and splints, immobile in one of the Tavern’s guest beds. Wrathion walked to the nightstand and with a finger lit the candle in the lamp. Sunken, bloodshot eyes blinked and squinted at him from over the black bruised skin of a broken nose. The prince’s neck was held in a brace, but Wrathion pulled a chair up so that he could sit within his view.

“…how is it that you always seem to know when I’m awake?” Anduin’s hoarse voice was teasing, but the sarcasm served a purpose. It hid the quavering in his breath.

“How can anyone be expected to sleep when you are in here stomping about and making enough of a racket to rouse an Old God from the bowels of the earth,” Wrathion quipped back as he kicked off his boots.

The truth was, there were nights when Wrathion was so restless that he could hear everything. That was the curse of heightened draconic senses. Everything from the creaking of the wind as it blew against the wood to the breathing of each and every one of the Tavern’s guests as they slept. Anduin’s was frequently irregular and easy to pick out.

Wrathion tipped back into the chair, lifting his bare heels to settle on the edge of the mattress. He set an elbow on the armrest and allowed his cheek to rest in his palm, his expression the picture of indifference as he regarded the other prince.

“I did not expect the Alliance to have such poorly mannered royalty.”

“I will try to behave myself more in the future,” Anduin replied, smirking through the grimace. “I expect you are here to punish me for waking a dragon?”

Wrathion rolled his red eyes, even as he felt his hearts flutter with a strange urgency. “You are correct, Prince Anduin Wrynn. I have an inclination towards subjecting you to my latest findings on decrypting the markings from an excavation site in the Kun-Lai Summit tombs.”

“I suspected as much,” Anduin sighed, though there was no bite to his words. “I beg of you, please don’t.”

Wrathion smirked as he leaned over to pick up a book from the nightstand, situated next to the candle. He feigned a yawn. 

“Alas, I’ve had quite a long and tedious day. I’m afraid I simply cannot muster the energy to drown you in an off-the-cuff stream of my brilliant consciousness. You will have to settle, instead, for the more endurable torment of Kang, First of the First Dawn.”

“Perhaps, then, there is hope that I will last the night,” Anduin said. “I’m sorry to hear that you had a poor day. What ails you?”

Wrathion lifted his shoulders as he paged through the book, looking for the place where he’d last left off. The truth was there was nothing in particular about his day that made it any more tedious than another. His problem was the nights. Frequent fel-drenched nightmares kept him from sleeping.

“Another day, another trial,” Wrathion dismissed, flicking his fingers as if he could brush the Old Gods away. “So much to do to protect this frail and pregnable planet: nothing you ought to worry your cracked head about.”

Injured and far from home, Anduin was terribly lonely and bored, which meant that it was very easy to capture the young man’s complete attention. And Wrathion frequently allowed himself to bask in it. Who could resist the chance at speaking to a captive audience, much less a prince of the Great Alliance? Not to mention one who never seemed to tire of hearing about the Titans and the Burning Legion, whose bookish, well-read mind always had a thoughtful statement to offer, no matter what twists and turns the conversation took. And perhaps the young lion could even be used to influence his wolfish father.

If he survived.

That was how Wrathion rationalized spending his sleepless nights at the prince’s bedside, again and again, to talk or to read, to help the young man pass the nights when the pain kept him awake.

Wrathion was mulling over this when the prince said, with complete and utter sincerity:

“I hope that tomorrow will be better for you, Black Prince.”

Anduin looking at him, as injured as he was, with… _concern_. It was ridiculous. But it made Wrathion fill with a kind of warmth, as if he had been struck by a fever.

That was the moment when Wrathion realized he had fallen under some sort of spell that caused him to look at Anduin Wrynn with nothing but complete and utter fondness.

The sea spread before him and Wrathion shifted at the last moment, spreading his wings and tilting his body along the updraft. The ocean spray licked at his stomach as he shot parallel across the horizon, towards the rippling lavender and blue lights on the shoreline.

He returned to Dalaran, landing lightly on his boots. He clutched at his side as he straightened, grimacing. The wound was healing and had graduated into being more of an annoyance than a hindrance to him.

Wrathion made his way back to Kalecgos’ house, passing through the blue dragon’s garden where impossible flowers grew. He closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of fresh air. Left sat on the porch, polishing her armor and drinking from a mug of beer. Jaina stood talking to her. The mage was dressed in a pair of traveling clothes she had obtained while staying in Dalaran, her sword hanging from a new leather belt. Wrathion’s steps put a stop to their conversation.

“There you are, I’ve been waiting for you,” Jaina said abruptly. “I’m leaving, temporarily.”

Wrathion nodded. “Unrest in Kul Tiras, if I could hazard a guess?”

Jaina nodded, her mouth drawn into a thin, grim line. “My mother is doing her best to handle the pressure from Stormwind alone but…Greymane has finally broken his silence to give her grief about Tandred’s exodus. I must go to her aid. Will you come with me?”

Wrathion shook his head, taking care not to meet her eye. 

“I have work to be done here. I must stay to coordinate my Blacktalon agents.”

Jaina sighed, resigned.

“Very well,” her voice dropped. “We will figure this out. From Kul Tiras, I believe I can force Stormwind’s negotiator to feed me more details about Anduin’s situation.”

Wrathion nodded. His heart was not into giving the gesture much validity. Jaina raised a hand to gently touch his elbow.

“Promise me,” she said. “That you won’t do anything rash.”

Wrathion offered no reply. Her fingers tightened around his arm, accidentally pressing into one of the freshly healed marks from the azerite net.

“Promise me,” she repeated. “Do not lose heart. I will be in touch.”

Wrathion at last, broke his silence.

“I will wait for your return, Lord Admiral. Thank you.”

Jaina seemed dissatisfied, but they completed their goodbyes. With a portal and the sound of seagulls, she was gone, leaving behind nothing but a trace of arcane remnants on the brick and the smell of salt water.

“Sir."

Wrathion turned to find Left paused in her work, the hand holding the oiled cloth gone still.

“What have you decided?” she asked.

At Wrathion’s silence, Left stood up, her face contorted and eyes dark as she clutched the polishing cloth in her fist. She looked on the verge of tears.

"Do not do this," she said, her voice fierce as she threw down the cloth and stepped closer. "We will find another way."

The dragon only shook his head.

“ _Wrathion_."

Left was close enough now to where her hands came down hard on his shoulders. His eyes flew up again, startled. She shook him.

"You do not know how ruthless humans can be,” she said. “If you lower your neck before them they will chop off your head and sing stories about the heroics of your executioner."

Still, Wrathion said nothing. He caught the sight of tears in Left’s eyes as she turned away.

"At least give me enough time to send a message to Right,” she begged over her shoulder, before disappearing into Kalecgos’ house. “Let me tell her what to expect, so that she may look after you as best as she can.”

Wrathion wandered the cobblestoned streets of Dalaran as twilight approached, hands tucked into his pockets, bearded chin inclined towards his collarbone as he thought. Members of the Horde and the Alliance were turning into their respective inns to end the night over dinner, drinks, and warm music. Coffee shops and restaurants were packing up their patio furniture, the shopkeepers reigning in their floating signs and locking the shutters over their windows. Windle Sparkshine was making the rounds, illuminating the streetlamps.

“Good evening, Lord Dragon.”

Wrathion nodded in acknowledgement of the high elf, who had paused in the middle of closing the shutters to the purple-painted pastry cart.

“You look as if you’ve had quite the day. Would you like to take home some of our leftover pastries to make it sweeter?”

“No, thank you,” Wrathion said. “I’m afraid I haven’t had much of an appetite for dessert lately.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, my Lord,” she replied, her blue eyes laden with concern. “Well, I hope something good happens to make the smile return to your face.”

The black dragon ran a hand over the back of his neck, looking up at the city skyline where the crest of the crystal-domed domed roofs met the rising stars.

“So do I, my dear. Have a good night.”

Wrathion approached the edge of the city and made the ascent to Krasus’s Landing. The mural had been repaired and the patterned doves circled the mosaic unbroken once again. The mana in the air grew thicker the closer one came to the edge and Wrathion could hear the floating enchantments singing.

His hand traced the embroidery on his shirt, slipping over each button that held it closed in the front, until he brushed the bristly leaves attached to the white rose pinned to his breast pocket. The protection enchantment made the skin on his fingers tingle ever so slightly as he traced the soft satin petals.

Wrathion unpinned the stem and held the blossom in his palm. It looked so fragile and full. He moved his arm so that his hand hung over the edge of the floating city as his fingers closed around the rose and crushed it.


	5. The Scarlet King's Trial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 are where the fic really earns its tags. In this paper bag is an injured dove, consider yourself warned.
> 
> Note that there are things in these chapters in particular that might not be suitable for those who have or are recovering from eating disorders and depression such as: vomiting, loss of appetite, weight loss, body image issues, and suicidal thoughts. In addition, there are discussions about implications of sexual assault.
> 
> If you want to peace out and rejoin later on the upswing, Chapter 7 is when you’ll want to hop back on board. I'll put up a brief, cut and dry summary of events in the beginning notes section of that chapter so everyone who wants to skip can catch up.
> 
> Whatever you decide to read, thank you <3

No doubt I shall emerge from it all a different man, but quite who I’ve not found out.

\- Alan Turing

* * *

Anduin opened his eyes to find cool shadows of moonlight spilling across his pillows. He sensed he was alone in bed; the sheets next to him were cold. Lifting his head from its resting place, he spotted a familiar form hunched at the end of the mattress. Wrathion sat with his back to the king, knees pulled close to his chest. His dark hair was falling over one shoulder, giving Anduin a clear view of the dragon’s bony shoulder blades pushing up against the skin of his back, marked by mirror lines of thin dark scars, almost like wings. The faintest trace of red light could be seen around the edge of the dragon’s profile.

“Wrathion,” Anduin said, his voice husky and laden with sleep. “What is it? Did you have a nightmare?”

“...yes.”

Anduin made an attempt to sit up, but something prevented him from moving his arms. Panic welled in his chest as he realized he would be unable to satisfy the urgent need to crawl to the edge of the bed and provide the dragon some manner of comfort.

“It’s over now,” Anduin tried, instead. “You’re safe.”

“Azeroth will never be safe,” Wrathion’s voice was laden with the sound of mourning. “And neither will Her children. No matter how watchful we are, nor how hard we labor, we cannot put a stop to entropy itself.”

“Please, Wrathion, don’t fall into despair,” Anduin continued his attempt to soothe the dragon from a distance. “Things always seem worse in the middle of the night. Come lie with me, let me rub your back.”

The king was well and truly stuck, as if he were pinned to the mattress. Through the haze, he wondered if it had something to do with the new concoction of potions his medic had prescribed for him. There always was some side effect or another.

Wrathion unfolded his limbs and slid over the edge of the mattress, making a soft thump as the soles of his bare feet hit the carpet. Anduin could only watch as the dragon strode around the bed, his gait so smooth he was almost gliding, and went over to the window bay. A warm summer night breeze drifted in through the open window. The dragon climbed over the pillow-laden seat and hoisted himself up to sit on the sill, sliding his legs through so that they dangled out of sight outside.

“Wrathion!” Anduin raised his voice in a panic. “Stop! What are you doing? _NO!_ ”

As Wrathion fell forward through the window, Anduin dropped backwards. A wave of nausea sent his head spinning as the bedroom dissolved and the light broke through.

“....r Majesty...?”

Someone was speaking to him, through the throbbing that dulled his thoughts.

“...Your Majesty?”

The room, the real room, slid into focus. Overhead, there were many bright lamps and enchantments illuminating the space. Anduin was more or less in the center of it, strapped by his wrists, ankle, and chest to a flat surface. Several mages stood around him. One of them was attempting to speak to him.

“We lost you for a moment. Are you alright, Your Majesty?”

Anduin felt a drop of sweat roll down the side of his face. He gritted his teeth and took a deep breath through his nose, attempting to steady his heartbeat.

“Yes,” he said, calmly, as he unclenched his tight fists, forcing his hands to lay flat. “Please, continue.”

The cantrip began again, activating the runes drawn in chalk on the table. Anduin’s spine buckled as an uncomfortable electric pulse tore through his body. It traveled from the tip of his head, through his chest and groin, to pierce the inside of his foot. He tried to focus on the candle lamps hanging from the ceiling, tracing the outline of the fogged glass shapes as he shifted in a futile attempt to get comfortable. After some time, he adjusted to the sensation, exchanging the sharp pain for a dull, maddeningly persistent ache in his muscles as the mages worked their spells.

Anduin had lost count of the number of times he’d been brought into this windowless room, somewhere in the bowels of the Stockades. The room most likely was used for the routine torture of prisoners of war for information before Varian’s father had put an end to the practice. The mages converted it into some kind of sanctum, drawing up runes and wards that Anduin did not know how to read. The king could only guess their purpose, but one effect was that they prevented both the Light and the Shadow from reaching him. When he tried to call out to either one, he was rewarded with only a dull headache in his temples.

He’d long given up on trying to ask questions. The mages ignored any attempts to initiate conversation, responding to any inquiry with polite but persistent silence. The only time Anduin bothered to speak any more was to answer the questions directed at him, which he did not have the option to ignore. Occasionally a priest would visit to perform their own examination along with rituals of purification and absolution. The overwhelming scent of incense masked the stench of wet mold and sweat that permeated most of the Stockades.

Anduin was unused to having so many invasive eyes looking at his body. Since returning from Pandaria, Varian had arranged to have a single, trusted physician treat his son in an attempt to curtail the court gossip. The physician was an older dwarf, sworn to secrecy, with few connections in Stormwind's intricate social spheres. Anduin could only do so much to hide his limp and the thin traces of scars on his face from where shrapnel had broken his nose and sliced open his lip when the bell had fallen, but carefully tailored shirt collars, long sleeves, and gloves were able to keep away stares.

Now, though, every imperfection, every weakness, every ache and pain, was laid bare for anyone and everyone who entered the room to see. Everything else that he’d had on his person, including his mother’s locket and the prosthesis, had been removed, so that the mages could examine them for signs of Wrathion’s enchantments, he could only guess.

The arcane poking and prodding eventually ceased, like it always did. Anduin was unstrapped from the table and allowed to sit up. He dressed in a loose cotton tunic and a thin pair of pants that the mages conjured for him, rolling the end of the right leg to keep it from flapping. Someone passed him a hunk of bread and cheese, providing a glass of filmy, lukewarm water to wash it down. He ate mechanically and without taste, staring at the wall. When he finished, a pair of guards were summoned to shackle his wrists behind his back and put a cloth sack over his head before hauling him off to his cell, where they dumped him on a thin, straw-filled pallet without ceremony. They usually remembered to rip the sack off his head before bolting the door shut.

The cell was a small, narrow room, also without windows. The door was made of solid wood with a small hole cut into the top for guards to peer through and to let in a bit of candlelight from the hallway. Anduin recognized the room from its general shape and size as one of the isolation chambers, somewhere in the deepest parts of the Stockades. It was very quiet. He was almost certain that he was the only prisoner being held in that wing. Occasionally guards would walk past, but his door was the only one they showed any interest in.

Anduin pushed himself into a sitting position and shifted so that he was leaning with his back and hands pressed against the gritty stone wall. The shackles were stamped with arcane wards that, like the ones in the mages’ examination cell, suppressed both Holy and Shadow magic. The door also gave him a strange, nauseous feeling when he stared at it for too long and he suspected more runes were carved into the wood. There was little to do but wait and sleep, so he would occasionally try to cast a spell to alleviate the boredom. When he did, his wrists would burn as the wards heated up to suppress it. He resigned himself to spending most of the timeless hours in simpler forms of prayer, reciting bits of scripture and hymns from memory in his head over and over again. The Light did not answer him and even the darkest parts of the cell never held so much as a whisper from the Void.

It didn’t take long for the cold damp to settle in. Anduin groaned as he felt familiar aches well up in his hip and back. He let his head hang against his shoulder, trying to stretch the tension out. Throughout the next several hours, the ache would work its way through his body until every bone was tinged with pain. He felt exhausted from the hours spent enduring the mages’ spells, but sleep was likely still hours away.

He tried not to think about Wrathion, but that was always where his thoughts drifted to, one way or another, no matter how hard he tried to keep his mind occupied with spiritual recitations. Thoughts that were accompanied by a sick worry and dread in his chest. Wrathion, in a cell like this, most likely worse off, suffering alone. Light only knew what tactics the Stormwind guard would need to use in order to contain him.

Wrathion would not deal well with being in a cell like the one Anduin found himself in. The king recalled a day when he had brought the dragon into the library archives, deep below the Keep basement where there were many short, narrow rooms stuffed with dust-covered shelves stacked with old scrolls and texts from reigns long past. As Anduin relentlessly descended into the increasingly narrow spaces, Wrathion fell farther and farther behind, until the king turned around to find him rigid in terror, red eyes wide and a slight tremor in his hands. Anduin realized his mistake at once and immediately led the dragon back into the wide open air. The cell was just as narrow as any of the spaces between the shelves. Anduin could almost touch the opposite wall with his outstretched foot while sitting down.

Wrathion’s arrival was set to be the same day as the morning of his arrest, the sweetness of the anticipation now like a forgotten dream. The date was no accident, it most surely had been planned that way. They may have even used Anduin as bait to lure him in. If they hadn’t slain him outright…

So, Anduin still prayed. Even if his prayers couldn’t reach the Light, even if the Light couldn’t answer. And it wasn't as if there were anything else even remotely productive to do with his time.

A while later, the cell door opened again, far sooner than Anduin would have next expected. The king blinked in the sudden bright halo of light from the visitor’s lamp. His eyes were still adjusting when, accompanied by the sound of thick, rustling cloth, the visitor crouched down beside him and set the lamp on the floor next to the edge of the sleeping pallet.

“Anduin, my boy.”

The sound of a familiar voice brought the elder man’s silhouette into focus: hard lined skin the color of parchment and tired eyes, threads of grey hair falling over knitted brows in the yellow glow of the lantern. A mixture of both relief and anger crashed over the king’s chest and all he could manage was one hoarse, weak word:

“Genn.”

The King of Gilneas set a bundle to rest on the dirty ground next to Anduin’s sleeping pallet. Anduin recognized the object as his prosthesis, with his mother’s locket draped on top, the round silver pendant and chain catching the light. He squinted back into the other king’s grizzled, unshaven face, just making out a pained expression in the orange shadow. Greymane’s blue eyes traveled from Anduin’s face down the length of his body, coming to rest with a pointed stare at the end of the right thigh. The older king reached out and laid his hand across the end, as if he were a healer trying to re-seal the old wound.

“Don’t.” With a quick jerking motion, Anduin drew his leg back.

Genn seemed to snap out of his daze, looking up with something like pity on his face. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small vial filled with a translucent red-violet liquid. Without a word, he uncorked it and held the brim near Anduin’s mouth. The former king leaned forward and greedily drank until he had emptied the entire thing. A warm, numbing sensation soon flooded Anduin’s limbs and he sank back against the wall, unable to hide his expression of relief.

“I hate to see you like this.” Genn also reclined as he replaced the cork, settling on one knee. “I’m sorry to have to put you through it.”

A few half-sentences of reassurance formed in Anduin’s mind, but he let them die before they could reach his lips. Genn studied the empty potion vial, turning it between his fingers. Refractions of the lantern’s glow through the molded glass flickered across the grimy walls.

“The mages of the Stormwind Circle say they have a few more tests to carry out,” Genn explained, squinting in a stray fleck of wayward light. “To obtain definite proof of your purity. It’s...extremely difficult to pin them down on anything, but, as of this time, they seem to be fairly certain that you are not under the influence of draconic magic.”

“I could have told you that.” The weeks of isolation had eroded Anduin's gentle manner of decorum. “Had you chose to listen.”

Genn’s eyes darkened, his brows throwing a shadow as they furrowed. “We could not be sure, nor could we trust your word. And it certainly does not work in your favor that there isn’t any trace of it.”

Anduin pursed his lips into a thin line. His own expression settled into one of rigid defiance, to which Genn responded with a slight shake of his head.

“I didn’t want to believe it,” the older king said. “No matter how many times I smelled him on you. Or your scent on… _him_. Every time I met you for dinner the night after his departure, the stench of his boots would be in your carpet, like soot.”

Anduin looked away. His breath came quickly as his pulse raced. He thought they had been so careful...

“Anduin,” Genn lowered his voice, as if to obscure their conversation from the guards waiting in the hallway. “Tell me the truth. Did he coerce you?”

“No, Genn,” Anduin said. “ _I_ took _him_. Willingly.”

Genn tapped Anduin’s leg again, a gesture that set the younger man’s teeth on edge. 

“What about before? Did he take advantage of you when you were first injured?”

“No.”

“You're claiming that he has never forced himself on you?”

“Not once.”

Genn leaned in closer, the smell of his cologne filling the space. Anduin’s head, tender with pins and needles from hours of inhaling incense, ached at the sharp, artificial scent.

“There is no shame in admitting if he has done so,” the worgen said, softly. “Whether it was done as the result of succumbing to the influences of the Old Gods or not. I can help you handle the matter discreetly. I would vouch for your innocence while limiting the spread of sensitive information, if you put your trust in me again, as you once did.”

Anduin shifted his sitting weight. 

“Wrathion did not,” the young king said, through gritted teeth. “Do anything of the kind. Not in the past, not recently, and he _never would_. I know this like I know the grace of Saa’ra.”

Genn’s hand was over his mouth, hiding the lower half of his face as he mussed the bristles of his tired beard.

“You mean this,” he mused, slowly, still staring at Anduin, but it was as if he were speaking to himself out loud. “Truely, you seem convinced of it.”

The effects of the potion helped Anduin sit a little taller, but the young king struggled to find the words that would diffuse the tension, the elusive, magical sounds that would restore some semblance of control over the situation to the rightful King of Stormwind. Genn, for better or for worse, was far from finished speaking his piece.

“You hated him, Anduin. Truly, truly hated him. It was by his monstrous hands that Garrosh Hellscream evaded justice. It was his evil schemes that heralded the return of the Burning Legion. Your father…”

Genn’s voice cracked. 

Anduin lowered his head. He did not know how he would even begin to explain the long, arduous series of conversations that took place when Wrathion began shepherding Magni’s first reports from Silithus to Stormwind after the end of the Fourth War. There had been a great deal of yelling, most of it from the king. The yelling bore a ferocity that surprised not only Wrathion but also himself. But, through it, the ugliness rotting in Anduin’s heart was destroyed by airing each and every one of his grievances, like exposing mold to sunlight. In the fresh soil left behind, a tentative friendship began to regrow.

“I was angry with him,” Anduin chose to say, instead, as he gathered the courage to meet the elder worgen’s eyes once again. “For a very, very long time. But, I forgave him.”

Genn looked as if he’d been slapped, desperate incredulity crossing his face. He looked as if he were watching his world crash down around him.

“You cannot be serious.”

“He was young.” Anduin gave a small, half-shrug. “And he would not have done what he did if it wasn’t for Kairozdormu’s influence. I would have been just as susceptible to the persuasions of an older, worldly bronze dragon when I was that age.”

“Forgiveness is one thing, but letting him into your _bed_...”

It wasn't as if getting to that point had been easy, or even intentional. Wrathion’s journeys from Silithus were so arduous, how could the courteous King of Stormwind do anything else but offer the dragon, savior of Ny'alotha, and an old friend, just one night of rest in one of the Keep's spare bedrooms? And, of course, it only seemed natural to offer him dinner as well. Then, one night of rest turned into two, so they would have more time to play a proper game of jihui.

Wrathion had looked so handsome and relaxed, sprawled out across the rug in front of the king's fireplace. Much of the dragon's old youthful bravado had grown into a humbler, quieter confidence. His familiar red eyes were so warm and without ulterior motive or judgements. His fangs were just barely visible in the part between his lips when he spoke. The thought of leaning over the game board to taste that mouth again was all-consuming; Anduin had been so tempted...

“Is this why you’ve delayed courtship?” Genn’s voice broke through the tissue of the memory. “You’ve let whatever temporary carnal pleasures that dragon gives go to your head?”

“Genn,” Anduin said, softly. “I cannot take a wife.”

“You are king.” Genn’s voice filled the small space, any pretext of privacy dashed. “You can and you _must_. It is your _duty_ , Anduin, just like any other that you carry out.”

Anduin remained still; his heart clenched as if a hand had slipped between his ribs to take hold of it. His eyes fixed upon the opposite wall. He did not trust himself to turn and meet the other king’s gaze.

“I expected better judgement from you,” Genn no longer bothered to hide his disgust, laden in every hard consonant that he spoke. “To say nothing of a more sensible attitude. I suspected...everyone suspected. When your father was alive, do you know how much he protected you in court? He threatened to tear off the head of anyone who so much as looked at you with disdain. I saw him break a man’s jaw once for mocking your limp and mannerisms at a party, when he thought Varian was out of sight.”

Anduin did not know. A cold shock ran through him, his memories of those years after coming home from Pandaria only contained the pleasant surprise of a warm welcome back to the social spheres of Stormwind’s nobility. He recalled the sheer relief he felt when he encountered no friction in attending parties or seeing to his other princely duties. Unbeknownst to him, his father had been waging a private war on his behalf. Varian had never said a single word about it.

“And you ruin his efforts by doing… _this_ ,” Genn spat.

Anduin took in a breath to make sure his response would be steady. He met Genn’s gaze in the same way he would have if they were standing opposite from each other in the Keep’s map room, discussing battle strategy. 

“It is not illegal,” Anduin stated. “My father struck down those sodomy laws early in his reign, after my mo--”

“ _King Anduin Llane Wrynn_.” Genn was truly angry now, but the rage in his eyes was accompanied by something akin to fear. “You are a High Priest of the Church of the Holy Light. Did you or did you not take a vow to uphold and adhere to the holy commandments of Stormwind City when the crown was placed upon your head?”

Anduin flinched. His gaze dropped to stare at the rim of the lantern. 

“You in fact took several,” Genn continued. “I know because I was there and I heard you utter those oaths before not just the archbishop but also each and every member of Stormwind’s noble houses. The same members of the governing body, by the way, that now want to bring you to trial for these indecent acts you committed with a black dragon, of all creatures. Another black dragon who wants its whispers regarded by the one who sits on the Lion’s Seat.”

Waves of fear broke over Anduin’s chest.

“Wrathion was doing no such thing.” Despite his efforts, a tremble permeated his voice. “He is innocent in this.”

There was something horrible in the way Genn now looked down upon him. It was as if the worgen did not see Anduin as he was, but something else entirely of the imagination. The young king sensed that the elder was approaching the limits of his willingness to pursue the conversation. The flood of questions that had been rattling around in his head for days now, answerless, pressed against his tongue and finally broke the dam.

“Genn,” Anduin spoke the name as if it were a plea, the lantern light shifting the shadows across his pale face as he leaned forward. “Is he in good health?”

The subtle change to Genn’s expression made him realize that the question would not be answered. The worgen’s beard shifted as his jaw clenched beneath it, a purple vein bulging in the gap between his skin and his coat collar.

“Please,” Anduin begged. “Promise me that you’ll make sure he is not being treated with cruelty.”

Genn shook his head as he took the lantern and rose to his feet.

“I don’t care how many charts those mages draw,” he said, looking down, bright light spilling over Anduin’s half-prone form. “That dragon has most certainly laid an enchantment over you.”

Anduin didn’t bother trying to say anything further and looked away so he did not have to watch Genn leave the cell, shutting him in darkness once more.

* * *

The passage of time was difficult to track, but after three more examinations followed by three fitful periods of sleep, the cell door opened to a group of six soldiers, decked in their full suits of blue and silver street plate. Anduin was allowed to put on his prosthesis and slip his mother’s necklace into his pocket, which he did with haste, ignoring the burning in his cheeks as he stripped off the pants to fumble with the socket in the dim light. He was hobbled with pairs of manacles, a long chain keeping his wrists pulled toward his ankles, and the sack once again placed on his head. Two soldiers flanked him, their hands guiding him in a new direction as they walked. After a long, winding journey that involved many stairs, Anduin felt fresh air on his hands and where the tunic parted over his chest in the front collar. Faint, yellow lamplight filtered through the covering on his head; he guessed it had to be sometime very late in the evening or very early in the morning. He could hear waves lapping against the slick algae bricks in the canals as they walked and smell the salt of the ocean through the musty burlap. 

Anduin swallowed a small bud of panic at the thought that he would be led to the harbor and thrown over the side. He tried to focus on keeping pace with the soldiers, feeling cobblestone and wooden bridges under his bare foot, gauntleted fingers digging bruises into his arms when he stumbled. The manacle on his right ankle rolled awkwardly around the thin, metal joint with each step.

After some time, he thought he heard the gentle rush of a fountain over the racket of metal plate footsteps, then underfoot the ground changed to a rug and cold, smoother stone. He was startled by the familiar scent of the Keep: he hadn’t realized how accustomed he’d become to the air in the Stockades. When the sack was finally removed, he found himself standing in his own parlor, breathing in stale air laced with the familiar, spiced scent of the upholstery.

“You’re not to leave this room, Your Majesty,” one of the soldiers said as he unlocked the fetters. “Your servant will be along to see to your needs.”

“Thank you,” Anduin answered with a polite nod, as if this piece of information were no different than any other that might have been delivered to him in this room.

One by one, the soldiers filed out. They shut and locked the double doors behind them. Anduin stood still, rubbing his wrists while he listened to the commander assign shifts to guard the king's quarters. After the commotion settled down and he almost could pretend that he couldn’t hear the occasional cough or shifting of metal plate armor through the panels, he turned to take in the rest of the room, feeling as if he were in a dream.

The furniture was more or less where he remembered it. The dining table stood at one end, a small arrangement of couches around a tea table at the other, in front of the fireplace. His handsome hardwood work desk and matching bookcases were clustered near the same wall. It smelled like home, of familiar wood and old ash in the unlit fireplace. The windows were closed, keeping in the stale, hot night air. The sheer white curtains lay still, filtering the moonlight that spilled across the floor.

Anduin approached the fireplace, sliding his hand across the dusty mantle to search for the long tin box of matches. Finding nothing, he approached his desk and began to grope through the drawers in the dark. Even in the dim light, he realized that its contents had been rifled through. Most of the documents that needed his consideration were now missing and the remaining items on the desktop were too orderly. His work journal was missing, in addition to the filled ones on the bookcase. Jaina’s hearthstone was gone. Also missing were the spare potions, the wooden container of soothing Highmountain smoking herbs, the pipe, and the personal journal he often wrote in to organize his thoughts at the end of the day. And there were no matches.

Anduin limped into the bedroom, pausing to run a hand up part of the chipped, battered door frame. Thin splinters grazed the calloused pads of his fingers. The doors and their hinges were missing, allowing no privacy in the bedroom from the parlor. He stood before his dresser and rummaged through one of the topmost drawers. When he did not find what he was looking for, he pulled each and every item out of the drawer, letting it drop to the rug. When that drawer was empty, he repeated the process, one by one, with the rest of them until the contents of the entire dresser were strewn across the floor. He dropped to his knees and began to push his hands through the piles of clothes, even though by that point he realized Wrathion’s shirt would not be amongst them.

A drop of sweat ran down the side of his face. Anduin stood up and made his way over to the bedroom window. He flipped the latch, but when his hands pressed against the frame, it would not budge, even when he banged his fists against the glass. Every window in the bedroom was in a similar state. The young king backtracked into the parlor to find both the windows and the balcony doors also bolted shut. After a few moments of puzzling, he realized that the handles and the hinges were stuck with a kind of locking enchantment that buzzed with arcana when force was placed upon it.

Anduin began to pace the length of the bedroom floor, from the row of locked windows to the second fireplace that would normally warm the chamber while he slept. The pain in his hip deepened with every step. He opened the nightstand drawer and found it empty. There was no sign of either the spare potion bottles or his diary.

For the first time, the king realized that the bed was perfectly made, as if no one had ever slept in it. The dark velvet canopy that he could normally draw around the bed for privacy was missing.

With nothing left to do, Anduin grabbed his crutches and dragged himself into the bathroom, taking note that the doors to that room were also missing. He didn’t bother to try opening any windows. He threw the crutches down next to the tub and turned the knobs on the pipes to begin filling it. Next, he searched the cabinet below the sink basin, pulling out the few toiletry items he possessed. Even as he did this, he knew that none of his healing potions would be there.

He regretted the glance he took of himself in the mirror.

Anduin returned to the tub and sat on the edge, removing the mages’ conjured clothing, letting them pool on the tiles. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the fabric shimmer, then disappear. He unlocked the prosthesis and rolled off the sock, wincing as he felt the rubbery material peel away from his sweating skin. He hadn’t the time to clean his leg properly before slipping it on in the cell, nor had he taken as much care with fastening the device as he normally would. The impatient soldiers scrutinizing his every move prompted his negligence. Squinting in the dark, he realized pieces of gravel, dirt, and straw from the cell floor had gotten stuck where they rubbed against his skin as he endured the long walk from the Stockades to the Keep. His thigh and the end of the limb were peppered with raw welts and blisters.

Anduin laid his hand across the bruised skin and began to pray. The Light did not come. Instead, a too-familiar headache welled beneath his brow and temples. His eyes darted to the bathroom windows. Without closer examination, he somehow knew that they, like the windows in the rest of his quarters, were enchanted with suppression runes similar to the ones used in the isolation cell.

Anduin swallowed the lump of panic in his throat and lifted his remaining foot over the side of the now mostly filled tub, sliding below the surface without bothering to test the temperature. The scalding hot water enveloped him, his clammy skin adjusting quickly to the heat. It was a relief, the first time he had been truly warm in weeks. He tucked his knee close to his chest, wrapped his arms around it, and stared at his distorted reflection, barely discernible on the grimy surface of the dark bathwater.

He didn’t move for a long time.

* * *

Anduin opened his eyes to sunlight, bright on the surface of the milky white pillows. He did not want to move from the warm confines of the bedsheets, but a small clatter of dishes from the parlor alerted him to the fact that he was not alone. He shot up, eyes darting to the open doorway. From his position in the bed, he could now see his servant, Byron, bent over the small dining table, arranging plates for breakfast. Anduin picked up the crutches leaning against his nightstand and made his way out into the parlor. His stomach clenched at the scent of bacon that now permeated the stale air.

“Good morning, Your Majesty,” Byron said with a small bow, as he had done countless times before. Almost every day since Wyll’s death, in fact, contrary to Anduin’s occasional reminders that it was not necessary to bow in deference, in particular when performing such a menial task as bringing the king his breakfast.

“Good morning, Byron,” Anduin returned the gesture with a dip of his head.

The king and his servant regarded each other for a moment. Byron was the first to break the silence.

“If it pleases His Majesty, have a seat,” he hinted, pulling out the chair nearest to where he had laid out the breakfast items, at the head of the table.

Anduin glanced at Byron’s face, but could make out nothing more than light strain from the awkwardness of the situation. He crossed the short distance and eased himself into the offered chair, letting the crutches rest against the side of the table.

“Thank you,” the king said, glancing up at the servant and trying not to stare too intently at the food. Confronted with so many rich smells, his stomach cramped from a new voracious hunger.

Byron walked around to the other side of the table, laying an envelope across one of the empty place settings. It bore an too-familiar navy wax seal stamped with the crest of the House of Nobles.

“What is the current state of the kingdom?” Anduin asked, hands clasped in his lap to keep from prematurely picking at the food.

“I’m not at liberty to say, Your Majesty,” Byron replied, avoiding eye contact.

A strange fury bubbled up, spurning Anduin to persist with the line of questioning, ignoring his servant's obvious discomfort.

“What’s happening to my people? Have any actions been taken, new laws written? Is Gilneas joining its kingdom with Stormwind?”

“Such matters are above my station,” Byron continued, still staring at the tablecloth, and he gestured towards the envelope placed upon the empty table setting. “I am forbidden from giving you any more information than what is officially permitted to you.”

Anduin closed his mouth. There was no point. Nor could he try to force Byron to choose between duty to his king and punishment from the noble houses. Not at possible cost to his life.

Byron changed the subject, his voice tense but polite.

“Does His Majesty require anything from me this morning?”

Anduin hesitated, his hand subconsciously running across his hip.

“...would it be possible to summon a physician?” he asked.

Byron’s face softened a bit.

“I’ll see what can be done. In the meantime, I can bring a bottle of wine, to help you relax?”

Anduin grimaced, but nodded.

“Very well, I’ll fetch a good vintage from the cellar. What else?”

Anduin hesitated.

“...what day is it?” he asked.

Byron told him. Upon hearing the answer, Anduin felt the pit of his stomach drop in shock. He truly had been in the Stockades for weeks, more than he'd dreaded. He bowed his head, staring at his lap as words formed on his lips: _What news of the dragon?_ Genn’s look of disgust rose to his mind, though, before he could bring himself to utter the syllables.

“Thank you, Byron,” Anduin said instead, desperate to maintain the fragile veneer of normalcy Byron offered him. “That will be all.”

The servant gave a curt bow and turned to leave. Before the doors closed, Anduin caught sight of soldiers standing guard in the hallway. 

He at last allowed himself to fully take in the table, which bore a modest amount of rich breakfast food: crisp brown bacon, pearly hard-boiled eggs, and two slices of fresh bread with greasy butter and tart strawberry jam. The food smelled better than it tasted in his dry mouth, even the bacon had a disappointing texture to it, like chewing on rubber. His first sip of coffee, though, sent an electric rush through his limbs. He was halfway through his second bite into an egg when he wondered if Wrathion was, in that moment, also hungry, somewhere still in the Stockades. He immediately pushed the plate away, his appetite disintegrated, and he was at once afraid that he would vomit up what he had already eaten.

The king settled into his crutches and just managed to drag himself across the room to the couch before the cold fireplace, where he collapsed into the well-worn upholstery, laying his cheek on one of the pillows bundled by the armrest. Despite the coffee and his pounding heart, he dozed, taking notice of the shadows in the parlor accommodating a new angle of the sun every time he woke again.

The king at last was roused, not on his own accord, but to the sound of the parlor doors opening. He lifted his head and saw, from over the back of the couch, Byron bringing in dinner and two bottles of dark red wine.

“The physician can drop by tomorrow, Your Majesty,” the servant said as he set the hefty green bottles down on the table alongside a plate of roasted chicken and garden vegetables. Byron did not supply him with a knife.

“Could you please light the candles?” Anduin asked as he resumed his seat at the table.

In the hesitation that followed, Anduin received his silent answer. After taking a moment to choose his words, Byron was courteous enough to grant him a verbal one as well.

“My apologies, Your Majesty,” the servant said, not making eye contact as he adjusted a place setting that didn’t need to be. “I’ve been forbidden to light a fire anywhere in these rooms. If you have business that requires light, I suggest that you attend to it before the sun goes down.”

“...I see,” the king said, after clearing his throat. “Thank you for bringing the wine.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Byron said, taking a step back, still facing the king with his hands clasped behind him. “Is there anything else that you require for the night?”

“No, that will be all,” Anduin shook his head. “Please, enjoy your evening.”

He doubted that he actually had much of a say in Byron’s comings and goings, but for the time being, they were both willing to play their parts.

Anduin managed a few bites of chicken, using his fingers to tear strips of fried skin and meat away from the bones, and finished enough of the vegetables where he had the energy to stand again without the room spinning. He rubbed his hip while he considered the untouched bottle of wine. He left it corked and reached for the envelope, still sitting where Byron had placed it earlier that morning. The king carried it between his teeth as he used his crutches to travel over to his desk. He roughly sliced one end of the envelope open with his finger and let the crisp, folded paper within slide out into his waiting palm.

_  
To His Esteemed Majesty High King Anduin Llane Wrynn,_

_You are hereby deemed to be reasonably sound of body and of mind by the Stormwind Circle of Mages in such that you have been declared free of enchantment by any and all dragonflights of Azeroth. As such, the House of Nobles permits you to reside within your quarters under confinement until further notice while the investigation into House Wrynn’s willing collusion with the Black Dragonflight continues. Until this time, King Regent Genn Greymane will continue to conduct all business pertaining to the Kingdom of Stormwind in your stead._

_You are to await further instruction._

_Sincerely..._

  
The following page was filled with familiar signatures from distinguished members of each and every Noble House of Stormwind.

Anduin read the letter three times over before letting it drop to the desk. He rubbed his eyelids, pressing his fingers up across his temples and through his hair. His heart pounded with a sense of urgency, but a fog of exhaustion prevented his mind from stringing together a single coherent thought in response. The ache in his hip had worked its way up his back and into his shoulders, the throbbing intruding on his thoughts. He felt that it wouldn’t be difficult at all to fall asleep right there with his head on the desktop.

Instead, Anduin placed an unlit candelabra in his parlor window, removing each white tapered wax stick except for the one that he normally lit for Valeera. He returned to the bedroom and let the crutches clatter to the floor before crawling back into the unmade bed. He lay on his back, staring at the shadows thrown across the gold embroidered canopy, right hip supported by a pillow shoved underneath the thigh. He wondered if the sleep he had stolen earlier was a mistake, as now his exhaustion was somewhat lessened and there was nothing else but his own dark worries to distract him from the ache spiraling outward from his pelvis. He wasn’t tired enough to sleep, but he was also too tired to entertain the thought of moving back to the parlor to dip into the wine or to fetch a book to read by moonlight.

Anduin’s hand reached over to the side of the bed that Wrathion usually took during his visits, fingers grasping for signs of warmth in the folds of the cool sheets. It was some time before he drifted off into a fitful sleep.

* * *

The following day, true to Byron’s word, the physician arrived. Dr. Harrek Breckenridge was an elderly dwarf with graying amber-brown hair and a short, neatly braided beard. He said very little in greeting and got right to business, instructing the king to strip down in the bedroom. His routine inspection of the young man’s faculties proceeded without much commentary, offering no reaction other than frowning at the dark bruises circling Anduin’s pale wrists and ankle. His manner remained distant, cold, particularly so when brushing off Anduin’s attempts at small talk. He seemed unwilling to meet the king’s eye.

“I’ll have some ointment sent up for the leg,” Dr. Breckenridge said at last, making notes on a sheet of rough parchment. “That should help with the irritation. In the meantime, you ought to stick to the crutches, give it time to heal. Shouldn’t be too hard, seeing as you’re not going anywhere anytime soon.”

Anduin grimaced, but the dwarf didn’t seem to notice, attention diverted from the business of quietly reading over his notes.

“And I’ll include some potions to help with the joint pain at night.”

“Thank you,” Anduin said as he pulled his tunic back on over his head.

“Have you been having unnatural urges, Your Majesty?”

Anduin stared at the dwarf. “I beg your pardon?”

“Urges,” Dr. Breckenridge repeated. “Intrusive thoughts, particularly about the dragon.”

A vision of Wrathion bubbled up, curled upon the floor of a cell, the weight of hundreds of rusting chains pressing him against the floor from the tip of his snout to his tail.

“No,” Anduin said. “Not at all.”

The physician departed with only a bow and a polite but sterile goodbye, leaving the king alone in the bedroom to finish dressing himself. Anduin picked up the crutches and ventured to his desk, pulling out a fresh sheet of parchment. He spent some time fussing with the quill, cleaning the tip of the ink that had dried in the well during his extended absence. Once he tested the flow on the back of the envelope from the House of Noble’s letter, he penned his own response.

_  
To the Most Esteemed Noble Houses of Stormwind,_

_Thank you for your vote of confidence. I write to you with the purpose of confirming that I am, indeed, quite sound of both body and mind, just as I was during the hour of the treasonous assault on my person. As I am capable of ruling at this time and have been since the Kingdom of Gilneas seized control of the Lion’s Seat from both House Wrynn and the Kingdom of Stormwind, which your houses now answer to._

_My demands, henceforth, are thus: First, I demand to be released from the confines of my quarters and my full powers as rightful monarch be reinstated. Second, I demand insight into the contents of this investigation, as is my right as a member of the Stormwind nobility undergoing due process. Third, I demand an immediate line of communication with Magni Bronzebeard, Esteemed Speaker of Azeroth Herself, to inform him that his ambassador, the Speaker for the Speaker, the Black Prince, is also under investigation and that his work in Silithus will be delayed._

_Yours sincerely,_

_High King Anduin Llane Wrynn  
_

He read the letter over three times, muttering the words out loud and accompanying certain syllables with gestures in the air. When he was through, he gave a nod of satisfaction, folded the parchment in perfect thirds and slipped it into a fresh envelope. He could not melt wax to seal and stamp it, but it would have to do, or perhaps Byron could seal it for him. He left it on the table to hand over to the servant the next morning, when he brought breakfast. With a sigh he glanced at the window. It was still early; he had the entire day left to fill.

Anduin returned to his bedroom and stood before the dresser, which was still surrounded by its contents that he had strewn across the floor the previous day. With nothing more pressing to do, the king knelt on the rug and picked up the closest item, a pair of pants, pulling them into his lap so that he could fold them. He focused on folding clothes and refilling the drawers, to keep his mind off both the creeping ache in his joints and the vision of Wrathion, still trapped in the Stockades while the man responsible for his pain remained coddled in the material comforts of the king’s royal chambers in Stormwind Keep’s highest tower.

* * *

Anduin awoke with the 6 o’clock morning bell. He slid out of bed right onto the floor, where he proceeded through a series of exercises including push-ups, sit ups, and hamstring stretches, concluding with a round of pull ups using a bar fitted in the bathroom doorway. It was imperative that he restore and maintain his strength while he languished in his quarters. Even during peacetime, the kingdom would not tolerate a ruler who had atrophied to the point where he could no longer wear his plate armor nor wield his father’s sword, should he ever escape the confines of the royal quarters.

By the time Anduin concluded his routine, sweat dripped down his back in the early morning heat, worsened by the stale hot air of his stuffy bedroom. He made his way into the bathroom on his crutches and drew a small bath. After scrubbing himself clean, he stood on one leg at the sink with his hip leaning into the edge of the basin for balance. He took a potion from the medicine cabinet behind the mirror and swallowed two generous swigs before returning it neatly to its place. Using a comb, he took care to un-knot the tangles from his damp, blond hair, now grown well below his shoulders. He ran a hand over the wheat colored stubble accruing over his jaw. His straight razor was another item that had been confiscated, giving him an excuse to test his beard growth, which he so far found to be disappointingly slow and sparse.

Anduin returned to the bedroom, where he selected a tunic from the closet and a pair of dress pants, as he would for any normal day of holding court in the throne room, and his left boot. Sitting on the bed, he took the jar of ointment from the bedside table and applied it to the remaining welts on the end of his right thigh. After a week of devoted application, the ointment was doing its job, but not enough to the point where he could trust that the welts would not split open again bearing the load of the prosthesis socket. He slipped on his pants and pinned the loose end of the right leg shut.

After making himself presentable, there was nowhere else to go other than into the parlor. On his way over to the table, he stood in the alcove by one of the large windows and peered outside. From what he could see of the courtyard below and the streets beyond, morning business seemed to be proceeding as usual. There were people strolling with bundles of goods and children running free without concern. The distant harbor cradled a few trade ships, dots of workers ferrying goods onto the docks. Nothing in his field of vision appeared to be ruined or on fire, so he could only assume that things were going more or less according to routine.

Anduin stopped by his desk to check off a square on the small calendar and pick up a book on Gilnean law. With the book pinned between one upper arm and his ribs, he took careful steps across the room, letting it drop on the table with a loud thud before taking a seat, leaning the crutches against the empty neighboring chair. He spent his time reading until the double parlor doors opened and Byron entered, bringing a tray with breakfast and the scent of grilled sausage.

“Good morning, Byron,” the king said.

“Good morning, Your Majesty.”

“Any news?”

“No, sir.”

After breakfast, Anduin set to work resuming the cleaning of his chambers, deciding to start with his desk. He emptied out the drawers, bringing them to the fireplace where he dumped out the dust and grit that had accumulated on the bottoms into the cold hearth. Old, unwanted items such as expired reports and other trivial notes were also tossed into the fireplace. He would burn them as soon as he regained the privilege of having access to matches again...or perhaps he would be so bold as to summon a fire mage, to make a spectacle out of it, for his own selfish enjoyment. The task was finished too quickly, and Anduin found himself once again in want of something to keep himself occupied.

The king sat at his desk, using his foot to rock back and forth on the rear legs of the chair, staring at the perfectly clean desk top. He pulled out an empty journal he'd been able to negotiate for via Byron and flipped through the first few pages he’d written in. He quickly read through the daily task lists that he’d made for himself:

_Morning: exercise, bath, comb hair, medicine, dress, eat_

_Evening: eat, undress, put clothes away, medicine, sleep_

He’d also made a note: _think of things to do to keep busy_ accompanied by three dark question marks embedded deep in the paper and a thick scribble of ink blots.

Below that, written in a much calmer script, was a single word: _organize_.

The following page held a short list of everything in the royal chambers that he could think of to clean and sort through: _desk, dresser, closet, bookshelves, bathroom shelves_.

He picked up the quill and wrote _reading list_ on the empty page. The Gilnean law book, still sitting on his table with the empty breakfast plates, became the first entry.

Chewing on the inside of his lip, Anduin pulled out a fresh sheet of parchment paper. He stared at the blank page as if it were a gaping mouth about to swallow him. A sort of desperate idea had begun to writhe in his mind, as it became increasingly clear with each passing day that no one in the House of Nobles had any desire to respond to his communications. There was no one left in House Wrynn; he was the last leaf on that family tree. But there was another house that he might persuade to listen to his plea for aid, that might be willing to petition the other noble houses on his behalf.

When finished, he addressed the envelope to _House Ellerian, Westfall_ and left it on the table, to hand off to Byron at dinner.

Still in want of something to fill the afternoon hours, the king decided that his next project would be dusting and re-arranging the bookshelves. The handsome redwood cases saw sporadic amounts of attention during his father’s reign, but were given new life once Anduin moved into the royal chambers. The young king brought his own significant collection of archeology, history, and religious texts with him, their spines filling most of the shelves. Every month or so during Anduin’s reign found new volumes accumulating, until all of the shelves were filled and a new bookcase brought in. There had once been a volume of mathematics, a gift from Wrathion, that Anduin was working his way through at a glacial pace. It too had been confiscated during the raid on his chambers.

Anduin began by taking each and every book and putting them on the rug, in piles sorted by topic. This thankfully took a significant amount of time. When he was through, he knelt amongst the piles and thumbed through each individual volume, checking the pages for tears or signs of water damage. He took special care to dust three well-worn journals. These had belonged to Tiffin Wrynn: their pages contained a meticulous record of personal notes she had made during her few years as Queen Consort, almost an entry every day. It was a small time capsule of her short reign that Anduin had managed to rescue from the Keep archives when he was a teenager. Now they lived in his parlor, safe from the court library's incinerator for the time being.

When he was through, he spent a moment staring at the piles. He changed his mind and began the arduous task of re-sorting the books alphabetically by the author’s last name.

This took him the rest of the way to dinner, when Byron brought a meal of roasted pork and potatoes.

“Good evening, Byron.”

“Good evening, Your Majesty.”

“Any news?”

“No, sir.”

Anduin managed a few bites, washing it down with half of a glass of wine. He read by the fireplace until the natural light became negligible, then dragged the book over to one of the pillowed seats in the bay windows. He continued to read by moonlight until he at last felt something resembling sleep begin to overtake him.

The king undressed, folding the clothes carefully over the seat of an ottoman in the bedroom. In the bathroom, he splashed his face and took two more mouthfuls of a different healing potion. He untied the leather band holding his ponytail in place and ran his hands through his hair to loosen the bend in the strands. Then, finally, he slid into bed where he quietly prayed until sleep overtook him.

* * *

Weeks after his return to the Keep found Anduin repeating his exercises mid-afternoon in the bedroom. He found himself unable to sit still while pretending to read from an old favorite book which recounted the events of a perilous dwarven expedition into Tanaris. Judging by the increasing intensity of the pain he felt upon waking up in the morning, combined with the increasing difficulty he had falling asleep at night, the king knew that he wasn’t keeping his body nearly as active as he should. If he didn't find some way to increase his physical activity, he would soon start to have difficulty running and walking, a prospect he was afraid to consider.

While doing a series of push-ups, he was surprised by the sound of his parlor doors opening prematurely, followed by soft, light footsteps on the rug. Anduin grabbed his crutches and hoisted himself up, rushing into the other room.

Mathias Shaw stood in the center of the parlor's wide embroidered rug, waiting next to the king’s table. He was dressed in plain, discreet hunting leathers and a lightweight summer cloak the color of old moss. His hood was folded over his shoulders, showing off his slicked-back graying red hair. To Anduin’s eye, Shaw was never without an undercurrent of bone-deep weariness to his person, but this particular afternoon, the Spymaster’s shoulders seemed to bear a heavier burden than usual. His pale face looked weatherbeaten, the faint freckles obscured behind a thin layer of dust from the streets.

“Greetings, Spymaster,” Anduin said with a nod, unable to hide his surprise. It had been some time since he had seen anyone’s face except for his own and his servant’s.

Shaw inclined his chin slightly.

“Your Majesty.”

“May I offer you something to drink?” Anduin asked, gesturing to the mostly filled wine bottle on the table.

Shaw stepped forward, shaking his head, and from under the folds of his cloak, produced a thick, rectangular bundle wrapped in crinkled brown paper, secured with twine. He laid it upon the closest horizontal surface, which happened to be the table where Anduin took his meals.

“I cannot linger,” he said. “I only wanted to ensure that you had copies of these. So that you would have a chance to prepare yourself.”

It took Anduin a moment for the implication behind Shaw's statement to sink in. He stared at the package as if it had teeth.

“I also want you to personally know that we never intended these to be read by anyone other than SI:7 personnel.” Shaw’s expression was grim. “Had we any idea of what was to come, we would have exercised far, far more discretion. We were negligent.”

Anduin began to make his way around the table.

“Shaw,” he asked before he could stop himself. “Please, how is Wrathion?”

Now that he had drawn closer to the spymaster, he thought he caught the faint but unmistakable scent of whiskey. The other man stared at him, his expression as unreadable as it always was.

“If I were you, I would not waste energy worrying about the dragon just yet,” Shaw said, after a long pause. “I would be more concerned about my current situation.”

Anduin’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand.”

Shaw remained silent. Anduin realized he would not get another word on the matter from him.

“Is this all?” the king asked, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice.

“That is all.”

With a final, formal bow, Shaw turned on his heel and stepped through the double doors. From the angle where he stood, Anduin couldn’t catch sight of the guards before the door closed, but he heard them well enough, their voices too low to discern any useful words from their exchange with the spymaster. The conversation stopped before Anduin could draw closer to listen.

Instead, Anduin turned to the package Shaw had left, leaning into one crutch as he undid the knot with the fingers of one hand, folding the soft brown paper back. Inside, he found stacks of documents, of varying shades of parchment yellow, interspersed with old, handwritten letters. Thumbing through them, Anduin found most of the headers were stamped with the familiar insignia of SI:7. Then, his heart stopped beating when he caught a name printed on one of the form pages:

_Tong the Mender_

Anduin quickly sat down, letting both crutches drop to the floor. He began to read the documents, thoroughly.

_The prince remains in critical condition. He has yet to maintain consciousness for more than a few moments or so at a time. The ethereal, green aura of this continent’s strange healing mists now constantly permeates the very air within the room, giving his chambers the persistent scent of grass after the rain. These unorthodox healing methods do seem to be easing his pain, but it remains to be seen if he will survive many more of these long, sunless days..._

Anduin stared at a photograph of himself, short blond hair, bruised body bathed in the lingering light from the soothing mists. He was peacefully asleep in a tiny, round pandaren bed. The photograph was so old, he still had both of his legs.

The documentation contained an extended record of communications between SI:7 and the two Alliance soldiers who had been assigned to his protection during his extended stay at the Tavern in the Mists. Anduin was well aware that the soldiers had sent regular updates on his health back to the Alliance camp, but he had no idea the extent or the sheer volume of them. The first chunk was a daily log of his health reports. That somewhat made sense. The fate of the crown prince was of utmost importance to SI:7 and he had spent at least two months teetering on the verge of death while the mistweavers finished stitching together what Velen could not.

What was more concerning were the other reports, those documenting the others who frequented the Tavern during the crown prince’s extended residency.

Anduin found a detailed list of every agent under Wrathion’s employment, accompanied by sketches and blurry photos. He instantly recognized a window-backlit shot of Left’s profile with her high ponytail and shy, downturned eyes. She stood opposite Right, discernible by the long, mirroring scars running across her pink cheeks. Right leaned forward, her lower body cropped, but from the angle of the young woman’s shoulder, she seemed to be taking Left’s hand. Anduin’s heart leapt at a discreet photo taken of Wrathion, nursing a beer in the Tavern dining hall during a briefing with two sin’dorei agents. He looked so young, legs spread wide to impress a more intimidating stance, his stubble beard barely grown, head wrapped in the hefty turban he used in his front-facing persona to deal with business matters.

_The Prince has been locking his bedroom in the evening…_

Anduin closed his eyes at the memory of curious talons running through his hair, of warm arms embracing him in the night, a temporary reprieve, he was always in so much unbelievable pain...

_...We can hear the voice of a second party..._

...red eyes illuminating the bedsheets, unearthly worry, a strange, persistent dread in the witching hours after a nightmare that frightened Anduin to his core, and dawn was so far away....

_...which we identify as belonging to Wrathion..._

...cold mornings fetching water for the kitchen, an unbelievable joy in the simple pleasure of being able to carry a bucket up a hill. Teasing words goading him on when his footsteps faltered, savoring the challenge...

_...the Black Prince..._

...warm lips, tinged with the iron taste of blood from a small cut left by the slip of a nervous fang unused to kissing...

_...and the leader of Blacktalon._

Anduin closed his eyes to try and block out the sight of the printed words that lay before him. There could only be one interpretation of why the crown prince was spending so much of his precious time and energy with the dragon.

More troubling was the stack below the records from Pandaria. These sheets of parchment were fresher, less dog-eared, stamped with an updated, modern version of the SI:7 insignia.

_Magni’s ambassador was spotted leaving the Keep with King Anduin Wrynn at 21:51. The king was dressed as a commoner. Agent Romano followed them for two hours before they returned to the Keep at 24:05. Upon this time, the agent trailed them to the king’s quarters where they were forced to stop to avoid detection by the king’s personal guard. It is theorized that the dragon spent the entire night in the king’s bedchambers as there was no sign of him leaving through the parlor doors or exiting through the windows. He later emerged after breakfast at 10:17 the next morning. This was confirmed by the members of the king’s guard, whose signatures follow..._

The bottom of Anduin’s stomach dropped. He threw down the page and grabbed the next one, hand shaking.

_...the king engaged in oral intercourse on the dragon. After the dragon’s release, this action was reciprocated. This did not appear to harm the king, who seemingly allowed it without force or coercion..._

_...Please find attached a copy of the king’s latest physical examination. Burns on the inner thigh, the physician notes that it was an accident involving an overturned candle but most likely the result of the incident which took place during anal intercourse with the dragon via use of a foreign object on the 5th of autumn..._

_...Agent Bodrick called for backup when he discovered the dragon had bound the king to his bed by the wrists and ankle. Intervention almost occurred, but was called off when it became apparent that this was done at the king’s request..._

Anduin dropped from the chair and clawed his way towards the wastebasket at his desk. He spent the next several minutes heaving up the remnants of breakfast. His face burned hot as he gagged around the sting in his throat from the sour, regurgitated acid. After spending a minute just spitting, he ran the back of a shaking hand over his mouth to brush away the drool, then sat on his heel with his hands falling slack in his lap.

A great deal of time passed before the king worked up the courage to move.

He crawled into the bedroom, wracked with chills and the burning radiation of the Light’s nauseating guilt. He dragged his prosthesis out from underneath the bed, brushed his thigh clean, rolled on the sock, and slipped on the socket. After securing it, he stood up, using only his own hands and knee for support. He tested the weight, paced the length of the floor, then returned to the parlor. Picking up the bundle of documents, he carried them over to the desk where he let them drop. He picked up a notebook and a fresh quill, opened the law book, and resumed reading.

* * *

Anduin threw his weight into a series of jabs into the empty air, taking controlled steps forward to advance on an imaginary opponent. In his hand was an old wooden cane decorated with a band of teal embroidered silk below the curve in the handle. It did not have the same weight and balance as Shalamayne or even a wooden practice sword, but it was currently his only option. He had begun to resign himself to the possibility that he would spend the rest of the year imprisoned in the Keep. He would surely lapse in his already modest fighting abilities if he didn’t find some way to practice.

So now _swordfighting_ was on his meager list of daily tasks. Anduin spent most of the afternoon working through the routine, dodging furniture in the bedroom. He’d pushed the two armchairs and ottomans off to the side, against the wall beside the fireplace. His parents had used them, probably, but they had seldom held company during his residency.

The setting sun and the sound of parlor doors opening signaled Byron’s arrival with dinner. This evening, the servant bore a letter. Anduin recognized the handwriting on the envelope and used his finger to break the seal as soon as the doors closed behind the servant.

_  
My Dearest Anduin,_

_I write to warn you that a fortuitous event has prompted the House of Nobles to decide upon the day they will summon you to stand before them and answer for your indiscretions. I dare not risk the consequences of prematurely inscribing the date here. The House will contact you when they are ready, but I may stress that the date is not far off._

_It is with a heavy and concerned heart that I implore you to consider your defense with as much care and consideration as you have any of the difficult campaigns you led during the course of your reign. The Stormwind Circle only detected faint traces of the dragon on all of the suspicious items confiscated from your quarters. This is not enough evidence on its own to definitively prove the existence of draconic influence over your reign. However, it will be your word against the dragon’s. I must stress this point, that the House of Nobles will believe you if you say that you were subjected to his affections against your will and have only now come to your senses thanks to your extended separation. If you remain stubborn and refuse to act in your best interest for the sake of your own legacy, then consider doing so if only for that of your father’s._

_Remember that I love you like a son. I do not wish to see you suffer._

_It is not too late to turn back to the Light._

_Faithfully your servant,_

_Genn Greymane  
King Regent of Stormwind_

  
Anduin read the letter three times, each iteration driving the feeling of nausea deeper and deeper until he felt that he would be sick, if only there was something in his stomach to relieve. He walked over to the fireplace and crumpled the parchment between his hands, squeezing until he felt the sharp wrinkles cut into the calluses on his palms. He began to rip the parchment apart, tearing off small pieces, bit by bit, and letting them fall to settle on top of the other items of trash within the cold fireplace grate like a strange and unmelting snow.

* * *

Anduin awoke long before the 6 o’clock morning bell. He exercised and bathed, donning the prosthesis. He studied his reflection in the mirror. His face was clean-shaven; he’d convinced Byron to help him the night before, the servant accompanied by two guards to ensure that the king didn’t attempt to seize the straight razor. Not for the first time, Anduin contemplated cutting his hair. Two memories stopped him. One was of his father’s intimidating, waist-length wild hair, the other of Wrathion’s claws twisting the locks, waxing poetry about how beautiful he thought it was. Instead, Anduin tied it back into a rough ponytail, taking care to make sure it was not too clean, like he had not spent too much time preening in the mirror. He ran a finger over the lines of white scar tissue pulling at the skin on his face. The lines would have been invisible in the early morning shadows if he didn’t know where to look for them. Before he left the bathroom, he chugged down an entire vial of red healing potion from his cabinet. The thick liquid burned on its way down. He took a second vial with him to put in his pocket.

The king spent far too long rifling through his wardrobe only to settle on a familiar pair of well-worn, dark pants accompanied by a plain button-up shirt and vest. These he wore beneath his long-sleeved summer silk coat in its practical Stormwind blues and golds. He tugged the collar high to rest over the scars on the side of his neck from where a chunk of brass had once cracked his spine at the neck. His pauldrons were polished and he slid those on as well, fastening the silver lion brooch above his heart. The brooch was scuffed in one place, not a scar from battle, but from a time when he had dropped it on the floor of the throne room. The pin backing had been fastened incorrectly by his trembling fingers the day after news arrived of Varian Wrynn’s incineration. He smoothed a formal blue satin sash with gold embroidered braids over his shoulder and chest, tucking the lower side into his waist at the belt. His boots stood waiting, polished and sharp from the hour he had spent cleaning the leather the night before. They still smelled strongly of oil. Anduin stared at himself in the full-length mirror he kept hidden in the back of the closet, wondering how to interpret the image he saw.

The king declined breakfast and dismissed Byron with barely another word, making him take everything on the tray back except for a pot of black coffee. As Anduin sipped the warm, bitter liquid, he opened the letter Byron had brought with the uneaten food, bearing the familiar blue seal of the House of Nobles. He read it without emotion, already well aware of what news the words would contain.

_  
High King Anduin Llane Wrynn,_

_You are to be escorted before the court on this day to answer to the assembled Noble Houses of Stormwind. At the conclusion of these proceedings, you will formally submit to the subsequent judgement of the Council of Nobles and the reigning regent, King Genn Greymane of Gilneas._

_May the Light illuminate the Kingdom of Stormwind on this day and free it from this shadow of darkness._

_Sincerely..._

  
Anduin let the letter rest unfolded on the table. He drained half of the pot of coffee while staring at the wall before the parlor doors opened and five members of his kingsguard stepped inside, dressed in plate.

“Your Majesty,” one said, his mouth the only visible part of his face in the shadow from the helm. “You are to come with us at this time.”

Anduin bowed his head and slipped on his soft leather gloves. He stood up and walked on careful, steady footsteps to stand before the array of wary guards. He realized a little too late that it was a mistake to drink so much coffee on an almost empty, medicine-filled stomach. He was unable to stop his hands from trembling slightly as he held them out to be locked in the manacles.

He kept his gaze trained straight ahead as he was led through the Keep, staff members stepping quickly to the side to allow the small procession to make their way down the hall. They passed through the throne room, where Anduin noticed a black sheet was now covering the Lion’s Seat. The stone walls were adorned with banners of Gilneas interspersed with the Stormwind and Wrynn family crests.

Outside, the air was already sweltering hot, the morning sun promising to burden the day. Andin felt sweat break out over the back of his neck beneath the high collar. The sight of the sky overhead made him feel dizzy and small; the confusing urge to run back inside combated with the sheer, simple joy at tasting fresh air once again.

At the base of the Keep, just inside the gates, a plain windowless carriage was waiting with a small cluster of individuals gathered in front of it. The captain of the Keep’s guard, adorned in full plate regalia and a brilliant velvet blue and gold cloak, stood face-to-face with Mathias Shaw, who was dressed in a modest outfit consisting of a black, fine light cotton tunic with an open collar and breeches, a matching black jacket folded neatly over one arm. Shaw was flanked by a night elf and a dwarf, both dressed in the familiar blue and brown leathers of SI:7. The dwarf held the reins of a patient, riderless black stallion. The captain was likewise flanked by two more guards, also keeping a riderless white Clydesdale at bay.

Another guard sat in the seat of the carriage, watching the standoff with an uncertain look as she held the reins of the pair of gray horses that would pull the carriage. The captain appeared to be arguing with Shaw, who stood with his weight casually bent into one leg, but unyielding, a passive look on his face that may have been etched in stone for all it reacted to the captain’s escalating tirade. The arguing ceased abruptly as everyone turned to acknowledge the kingsguard’s approach.

“Good morning, Your Majesty,” Shaw said, without ceremony.

“Good morning.” Anduin’s voice cracked in his reply.

The captain took one last look around before tossing up a gauntlet-clad hand in Shaw’s general direction, the harsh sun glinting off the silver.

“Have it your way,” he said, turning in the direction of his own waiting horse. “Who am I to pretend that SI:7 won’t do what it wants, regardless.”

A push on Anduin’s back goaded him to start towards the back of the carriage, the doors open and waiting. He managed to climb up into the dark exterior and take a seat on the end of a plain wooden bench that ran around the length of the interior. A guard followed to attach the shackles at his ankles to a bolt on the floor where he sat. Anduin caught a brief glimpse of Shaw, swinging one leg over the black stallion’s saddle, before the carriage doors shut, enclosing him in a strange gray darkness. A bit of light filtered in through the cracks in the wood, revealing the edge of the benches within as his eyes adjusted from the sunlight. Anduin murmured a quick prayer, but the familiar burning once again heated his wrists through the gloves, keeping at bay any comfort to be gained from the Light’s presence.

With a jolt that sent Anduin’s body swaying sideways, the carriage started. The racket from the wheels and the horses’ hooves over the cobblestones drowned out most of the noise from the street. The king gripped the edge of the wooden bench tightly between his spread knees. Though the ride was rough and the air within the compartment quickly grew warm and stale from the unrelenting sun’s rays, the potion he’d taken earlier was doing its job to keep him numb to any encroaching pain. He hardly felt discomfort as the carriage jostled beneath him. He’d almost begun to relax when a loud, angry thud on the carriage wall accompanied by a violent vibration right next to his ear caused him to flinch. He heard Shaw’s voice bark out in anger, the words indistinguishable through the thick wooden walls. Anduin’s heart began to pound as he strained to listen, but nothing further happened. He said another prayer under his breath.

The carriage came to a halt sometime later. Anduin uncurled his fingers, palms and joints now sweaty underneath the leather. The doors swung open, blinding him in the sudden brightness. He was released from the bolt in the floor and allowed to climb outside. 

Shaw was the first shape Anduin registered, his black outfit a stark contrast to the white stone stairs leading into the structure where Stormwind court was held. The spymaster wordlessly fell in step beside the king as he ascended, the guards drifting into formation around them. Anduin could hear a bit of noise somewhere far behind, a murmuring of gossiping voices that he initially mistook for the sound of the ocean waves in the harbor. He didn’t have the courage to look behind him, fearful of annoying the kingsguard and also of what he would see in the assembled crowd of commoners who had likely gathered to catch a glimpse of their king. He kept his eyes focused on the layered stone ascent and soon they were in the sweltering confines of the court.

Anduin had frequented this building many times over the years, mostly for social events. He knew the layout of the marbled halls with their delicate wood paneling and gilded paintings by heart. There was a small library he used to seek comfort in when he needed a respite from the tedious small talk and scrutinous gazes. Occasionally, he had been allowed to enter the main chamber while court was in session, as part of his tutoring to ensure the crown prince would at least be familiar with the proceedings. As the family of the reigning monarch, and later as the monarch himself, his ear was not wanted as the nobles deliberated amongst themselves, airing grievances and drafting propositions for new laws.

Today was a very different day.

Every eye turned to look upon the king as he was brought through a set of heavy double doors that opened into the main chamber. The rows of generously cushioned benches that surrounded the center space were packed, the hot air burdened with the steady rumble of many casual conversations occurring simultaneously as nobles socialized with each other, killing time as they waited for the proceedings to begin. Anduin’s ears were already tinged red from the stares he had earned in the halls, but his entire face grew flushed as soon as it hit the suppressive heat of the chamber.

There was a sudden, brief lull as everyone assembled took a moment to watch the king's entrance. Anduin concentrated on keeping his shoulders square as he was led to a seat in the lower most row of benches, towards the front of the room. Shaw took the seat to his right and the kingsguard filled in the remaining seats behind them.

Anduin sat with his shackled hands clasped between his knees, leaning forward slightly into his elbows resting on top of his thighs. He held his head up, keeping his eyes cast down to stare at the wooden barrier between the benches and the polished floor. The back of his ponytail was already damp with sweat and sagged in the leather cord.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Shaw lean back and cross one ankle over the opposite knee, arms folded square across his chest as he stared out over the room with wary, almost bored eyes, as if he was merely a patron enduring a drink at a mediocre tavern. In the still, breezeless air, Anduin caught the other man’s scent, clean like soap, without a trace of the whiskey he'd detected weeks before. A few moments later, an SI:7 agent made their way over, leaning across the barrier. Shaw bent forward to lend his ear and they exchanged words that Anduin couldn’t make out despite his proximity to the conversation.

The monotony of waiting for the proceedings to begin eventually gave Anduin the courage to shoot furtive glances around the room. He spotted Mia Greymane sitting by herself, shoulders rigid with tension as she stared out a distant window, white hair illuminated in the sun stream like a halo. He recognized almost everyone in the room, having known most of these families since he was a child and having had them come before him with petitions numerous times during his reign. Their faces were not friendly. His eyes darted away from anyone whose gaze he accidentally caught.

The room eventually filled and the noble representatives, twelve men and two women, entered to take their seats in the thrones. Genn was the last to enter. Anduin rose to his feet with the rest of the assembly as the King of Gilneas and King Regent of Stormwind completed the long walk across the room. He wore a freshly tailored jacket Anduin had never seen before, mostly Gilneas gray, with Stormwind blue and gold accents. He wore two pins at his throat, a crest from each kingdom. Anduin was not prepared to have Genn turn and look at him as he made his way past. The elder king stopped completely in his path to make cold eye contact and give a deep, formal bow. Anduin returned the gesture as best as he could, his ears burning with renewed flames. When he rose, Genn gave a nod of approval before turning to finish his walk. He came to stand before a special wooden throne, decorated with delicate twists of golden leaf in the shape of lions and wolves, that had been arranged to sit off to the side, offering him full view of the floor.

The assembly was silent as everyone waited.

“Esteemed members of the Noble Houses of Stormwind,” Greymane said with a grasping gesture. “I thank you for both your time and your patience during these fraught few months. I would once again like to express my humble gratitude that you have honored me with the duty of helming the Kingdom of Stormwind during this difficult period in your nation’s history. Whatever happens during the course of this day, know that Gilneas stands with you, as it has since the Shattering, always in admiration of your unwavering ability to persevere. May the work we do here on this day provide clarity and renewed strength to Stormwind’s foundation.”

Genn swept his coattails aside and took a seat amidst a round of applause. Shaw’s hand, a light but firm touch upward on his elbow, warned Anduin not to follow the rest of the assembly as they, too, sat down around him. Anduin barely had time to recover his posture before he found the sharp brown eyes of Count Ridgewell fixed upon him from across the floor. There was no trace of deference or respect on the nobleman’s face. Ridgewell sat leaning forward on his elbows, jacketless, the sleeves of his laced blouse rolled up in an attempt to find relief from the humidity. His skin was spotted red and his black salt-and-pepper hair was slicked back and greasy in the heat.

“The House of Nobles summons High King Anduin Llane Wrynn to come before them.”

Anduin squared his jaw and walked down the aisle, making his way around the low wood barrier and out onto the long floor in the center of the room. He stood with uncertainty before the Council, next to the chair and small table opposite theirs, unsure what the proper decorum was in this situation.

“Have a seat,” Count Ridgewell said with a gesture towards the chair. “Every member of this court is well aware of your condition and it is not our intent to test your ability to stand for long periods of time.”

Anduin’s eyes blew open with anger. For a moment, he could only stand and stare, his heart pounding in his throat, grateful for the heat to excuse his now burning red face. He felt the weight of hundreds of eyes upon him. Under these gazes, he tried to steady himself and complied with the count’s request. He shifted in an attempt to get comfortable in the chair, uncurling his fingers from the fists he had clenched. The blond noble seated to Ridgewell’s right-hand side, Lord Wishock, stood, adjusting his reading glasses as he held up a piece of paper. His sleeves were also rolled, his navy blue velvet vest unbuttoned.

“King Wrynn,” Lord Wishock began. “You are brought before the collective Noble Houses of Stormwind to answer for your questionable actions in showing personal favor to a member of the Black Dragonflight. You are accused of having done so at the expense of both the kingdom’s safety and the integrity of the sacred position that you hold.”

A cold wave of nausea pricked Anduin’s spine.

“Do you deny pursuing an intimate friendship with the son of Deathwing the Destroyer, the Black Prince, Wrathion the Earth-Warder?”

Anduin’s breath was, once again, ripped from his lungs.

Earth-Warder.

An Aspect.

_Wrathion._

After a moment or two, Anduin was grounded by the deafening silence that strained the room. Every noble sat, rapt, waiting for him to answer the question. The king tooka single, shallow breath in an attempt to steady himself. He found his voice, speaking with the strength he normally reserved for either the throne room or the battlefield.

“I do not deny it.”

His voice sounded strange in the chamber. He was accustomed to the throne room’s stone walls that were engineered to amplify the sitting king’s voice from the Lion’s Seat. A faint murmur of disdain rippled through the room in the wake of his words.

“Do you deny this relationship began years ago, during your ill-fated, expensive pursuits on the hidden continent of Pandaria?”

“No,” Anduin said. “I do not.”

Lord Wishock pursed his lips, glancing at the king from over the rims of his reading glasses. He licked a finger and used it to separate the corners of the pages he held, pulling a particular one to the top.

“You showed undeniable courage in aiding the late Varian Wrynn during the Pandaria campaign, may his soul rest with the Light."

Anduin realized, after a moment staring in awkward silence, that he was expected to say something in response.

“Thank you, Lord Wishock,” the king acknowledged, graciously.

“It is this court’s understanding that your injuries were deemed too grievous to risk transportation back to the Eastern Kingdoms. At this time, you were sheltered for over a year on the Veiled Stair. What coerced you into entertaining the Black Prince’s company during this time?”

“I was not coerced,” Anduin stated. “The Tavern housed many travelers and patients other than myself. It was natural for occupants to mingle, as is pandaren custom. There were many communal areas which provided opportunities to do so, such as the hot springs...”

“But you were struggling with mobility,” Lord Vanyst stood up, his laced golden sleeve trailing as he held forth a document Anduin could perceive as a copy of one of the medical reports from Shaw. “And you are most certainly not a native of Pandaria, with no obligation to abide by local customs. You were a crown prince of the Alliance, who had two guards to help him keep unsavory characters from darkening his guestroom’s doorway.”

“This was a most severe lapse in judgement,” Lord Lescovar grunted around his jowls from the end of the table.

Murmurs and nods rippled up and down the thrones.

“Agreed,” Lord Wishock picked up the thread of conversation again. “This should never have been allowed.”

“Under normal circumstances,” Lord Lescovar continued to rasp from the steeples of his bark-like, tobacco-stained fingertips, decorated with burdens of heavy rings. “Ser Cromstock and Ser Reed would be brought forth and asked to explain themselves. Unfortunately, they both met an untimely end in Kul Tiras, and we can only divinate their intentions through their preserved letters and reports.”

Anduin felt a jolt of anguish tear through his heart. His relationship to the two guards had initially been a fraught one: the strain of watching the crown prince’s health ebb and flow day to day took a toll on the two men and their stress and resentment often showed when speaking to the prince. Over time, their relationship turned into a far more charitable one. He hadn’t realized their names were among the list of the dead in Boralus.

“Regardless, this relationship could have been excused as a youthful misstep,” Count Ridgewell granted. “Then we would be having a different conversation. But, it did not.”

He gestured to Lord Wishock, who picked up a second set of documents.

“The House maintains that the relationship should have ended with the flight of the Black Prince to Draenor,” Lord Wishock declared. “After his criminal actions to aid in the escape of Garrosh Hellscream. At this time, the dragon inflicted a quite grievous injury to Your Majesty during the escape attempt, did he not?”

Anduin bristled slightly, unsure how someone who had just held in his hand photos of the crown prince’s utterly shattered body could call a minor concussion grievous.

“Hardly.”

“His betrayal nonetheless soured Your Majesty’s affections for him, yes or no?”

“It did, yes.”

“Upon his return, years later, escorted by the Speaker of Azeroth, reports are that Your Majesty assaulted him the moment he stepped into the throne room. Do you deny this?”

Anduin winced. “...no. I do not.”

“You had an arrest warrant open for him,” Lord Wishock waved a familiar document that Anduin recalled signing, years ago. “For his crimes against the Kingdom of Stormwind, in particular aiding in the return of the Burning Legion and subsequently the murder of Varian Wrynn. Do you confirm this?”

“Yes.”

“And do you acknowledge withdrawing that warrant a year ago, before issuing this subsequent pardon, following the apparent defeat of N’zoth?” A second, also familiar missive was waved in the air.

“Yes.”

“And do you deny that this pardon was issued one month after the first date of your first recorded sexual encounter with the former criminal in the royal chambers?”

Anduin’s pulse raced. His chest burned from the brief memory of running his hands through Wrathion’s hair, spread across the white pillows, as he leaned forward to inhale its charcoal scent. It was the first night of his life where he did not have to fall asleep in the Keep alone.

“No. I do not deny it.”

The murmurs grew again. Lord Wishock looked around.

“Is it possible,” he asked. “That the dragon’s magical influence persuaded you to issue these orders?”

“No,” Anduin said, with force enough where it was almost a shout. “Wrathion most certainly did not--”

“Thank you, King Wrynn,” Count Ridgewell interrupted from his seat. “This is not the throne room. We do not require your commentary at this time. We only need you to answer what is asked of you. Can you manage that?”

There was a small motion along the table as something was passed, hand-to-hand, from the end where Lord Daris sat to Count Ridgewell in the center. Anduin felt a strange jolt creep up his spine as he realized what this was.

“King Wrynn?”

Hands still in his lap, Anduin threaded his fingers together and pressed down hard upon his knuckles until he felt a small amount of pain shoot through his palms.

“Understood, your Excellencies,” he said, calmly. “My apologies.”

Lord Wishock nodded in satisfaction and turned back to the table. He held out his hand. Ridgewell passed him the sheet of parchment, stamped with Anduin’s crest and bearing his signature.

“In addition to these two orders,” Lord Wishock began. “You passed a third, reversing a previous order issued by your own father. I realize that you were quite young when these events occurred, but do you recall the Prestor Edict?”

Anduin swallowed before answering, his tongue strangely thick.

“Yes.”

“Can you describe this edict as it was decreed by your father, King Wrynn?”

Anduin shifted, the chain at his ankles making a loud noise in the strange quiet of the chamber. The weight of a shared, collective trauma hung thick in the air.

“My father declared the Prestor Edict to bar members of the Black Dragonflight from entering the Kingdom of Stormwind,” the king said.

Lord Wishock nodded, apparently satisfied by this answer. While he stood, he loosened his shirt cuffs. The armpits of his blouse were dark from sweat.

“Surely no one was closer to Varian Wrynn than his son,” the lord continued. “Could you speculate for us why you think he deemed this edict necessary and why he did so with such haste, to the detriment of his health and recovery?”

Anduin held back the memory of his father, sitting on the Lion’s Seat not even a day after Onyxia’s defeat. The Wolf was holding himself upright by sheer force of will alone. It had been startling, seeing Varian framed in the stained glass lighting again, the king that was and also was not the same man who had been abducted so many years ago.

“My father felt a sense of urgency to put some measure of control over the situation,” the king chose to say. “Considering he had just come home to find Stormwind Keep overtaken by the black dragon Onyxia and her forces.”

“And how did this happen? Why was the current reigning monarch unable to prevent this?”

Anduin’s chest clenched. “I was the sovereign during Varian Wrynn’s absence. Onyxia was hiding in the court under the mortal guise of a human woman named Katrana Prestor. She served as one of my close advisors.”

“'Advisor,'” Lord Wishcock echoed, the word reverberating through the hall, quieting some of the murmurs. “Interesting. This title sounds familiar, does it not, King Wrynn?”

Anduin remained silent. His knuckles tingled, like he’d managed to squeeze the blood out of them. Lord Wishcock took a turn across the floor, arms spread as he made his appeal to the seated nobles.

“It seems the Black Prince is not the first black dragon to have taken that title in Stormwind,” he shouted.

Still, Anduin said nothing. He stared at the table before him, feeling a bead of sweat run down the side of his face and into his coat’s stiff collar.

“This law was still in place at the time of the Black Princes’ escort by Magni Bronzebeard in the late hours of the Fourth War?” 

“Yes.”

“So the Black Prince entered the city illegally at this time?”

“That is correct.”

Lord Wishock took a moment to pause and glance around the chamber because it had become difficult to say much more as the nobles of the assembly picked up their hushed conversations with each other. None of the representatives seated in the thrones made an attempt to quell the noise. Anduin tried to collect his scattered thoughts and focus.

“What compelled you to strike down your father’s sensible law?” Lord Wishock asked, his strong tenor rising above the din.

“The Black Dragonflight has changed.” Anduin struggled to match the other lord’s volume. He doubted his voice could be heard from the seats in the uppermost benches. “The two living members are uncorrupted and now actively contribute to the healing of Silithus in the wake of Sargeras’ assault. It was necessary to lift the edict in order to allow the Black Prince into the city, so that Stormwind would be privileged to receive the Speaker's missives, as the Horde does...”

“The Black Dragonflight’s history is mired in corruption and false promises,” Lord Wishock said. “Perhaps their defining characteristic is an aptitude for deceit. There must have been an extraordinary amount of compelling evidence that convinced you of their newfound sincerity.”

“Yes, indeed,” Count Ridgewell’s voice interjected. “Do you care to share your reasoning, King Wrynn?”

Anduin took a shaking breath. “I was given Magni’s word. And Mayla Highmountain’s testimony…”

“Mayla Highmountain?” Lord Whishock interrupted.

“Leader of the Highmountain Tribe,” Genn explained, his voice edged with contempt. “A member of the Horde.” 

“Ah, of course,” Lord Vanyst suddenly sneered, turning to look at Genn. “Unsurprising, given our king’s bleeding heart has spent a significant amount of time dripping in Mulgore.”

Genn said nothing, but upon seeing the familiar look of disdain and disgust on the King Regent’s face at mention of the Horde, Anduin felt chills ripple beneath his feverish skin like he had been plunged into an ice bath. His first impulse was to correct Lord Vanyst, but he decided the logistics of the tauren tribe’s geography wouldn’t help him in this situation.

“Wrathion defeated N’zoth, at great personal cost and risk to himself,” Anduin attempted to steer the subject back to a topic that would work in the dragon’s favor. “He nearly died…”

“Reports from the champions indicate that he refused to enter the final chamber,” Wishcock interrupted, rapping his knuckles on the small table in front of Anduin. “Citing ‘risk of corruption.’ It would seem that the Old Gods remain very much interested in the minds of the Black Dragonflight.”

Lord Wishcock approached the small table, pressing both hands to opposite corners, leaning forward so that his face was mere inches from Anduin’s.

“Perhaps you can enlighten us with your expertise on the matter,” he said, every word ringing loud and clear from the uppermost echelons of the chamber. “How does one know, King Wrynn, if a black dragon is under the influence of N’zoth?”

_A memory of a woman with dark hair, her soft footsteps always accompanied by the rustling of a red scale-patterned dress. When she whispered in his ear, there was the overwhelming lavender perfume sharp in his nose, enough to cause small headaches, and beneath it, the trace of charcoal._

Anduin realized his hands were trembling from the sensation of burning hot iron pressing against his wrists. On instinct, his hands jerked apart, trying to escape from the pain, but only succeeded in tugging uselessly at the chains. A dark tendril curled in the back of the king’s mind. Somehow, over the ruckus of the nobles gossiping in the chamber, he could make out the faintest of whispers...

“I...I am not sure,” Anduin managed to say.

The heat began to recede and his trembling hands relaxed between his legs.

Lord Wishock stepped back, unbuttoning the top-most fastening of his shirt and loosening his cravat. He stared suspiciously down at the king’s hands.

“Given your personal history,” Lord Wishcock began, glancing up again. “Would a desire to gain proximity to those who have access to the Lion’s Seat be a reasonable assumption to make?”

Anduin did not reply. No one forced him to answer this question. The insinuation alone was enough.

Lord Wishock took his seat. Count Ridgewell made a signalling gesture to Lord Vanyst, who rose to his feet, bearing a hefty stack of familiar looking documents, each page crowned with the seal of SI:7.

“We will proceed to the next matter, addressing the specific nature of your relationship with your ‘advisor,’” Lord Wishock held a page aloft. “I ask the court’s patience as we go through each and every one of these important records dutifully recorded by our meticulous intelligence agency. I will give the court a moment if there are any sensitive members of the assembly who wish to relieve themselves at this time.”

Anduin closed his eyes for a brief moment. He heard no footsteps.

“Let us proceed, then. King Wrynn, can you confirm this statement, recorded on the fifth of Autumn, last year? _The king brought Magni’s ambassador to his bedchambers, where they proceeded to undress…_ ”

By the time it had all finished, Anduin’s mouth was so dry that he was unable to swallow properly, from the countless times he had been made to confirm the validity of SI:7's reports. The uproar in the room was a constant buzz in the back of his mind that made it difficult to think. The long weeks of refreshing his memory on the relevant laws and taking notes and planning in his stuffy bedroom prison crumbled into uselessness before him.

“Well, it seems you’ve certainly had no trouble keeping yourself occupied during your leisure time,” Baron Dreuger grumbled from his throne at the end of the long table, shaking his head as he used a handkerchief to wipe greasy fog from his eyeglasses.

“Undoubtedly our king’s time would have been better spent engaged in communing with the Light to exorcise his demons,” Lord Vanyst suggested. He was waving a lace paper fan back and forth, looking pale under a thin sheen of sweat.

“I am sure the archbishop will have his own words to say to His Majesty on the matter at a future time,” Count Ridgewell gave a deferential nod to a man dressed in robes seated towards the front of the assembly, who was silently observing the proceedings among a cluster of priests. “Thank you for your time, Your Majesty. You are dismissed.”

When the king rose to his feet, he found his legs were weak and shaking, the room spinning around him as he swayed. He steadied himself with his manacled hands pressed to the table, sweat slithering down his back beneath his shirt, the layers of cloth at his chest and beneath his armpits damp. As he turned, he caught sight of Genn, looking at him with what could only be interpreted as a look of utter disappointment.

Anduin managed to limp towards the gap in the low wood barrier that separated the floor from the benches. Shaw’s grim face was a strange beacon that he followed through the gray haze that now coated his vision. The spymaster’s arms were still crossed, his pale face so blurred Anduin could barely discern the other man’s individual features, only a smudge of red hair and thin beard. The king stumbled towards him like a moth drawn to a light and at last collapsed into the chair next to him. The court around him was an indecipherable smear of color and shadows, the ground rocking in rhythm with the nauseating pounding that consumed his temples. He felt so insufferably hot that his entire body throbbed as he drew each arduous breath.

“Anduin.”

Shaw’s voice came from worlds away, so soft the king wasn’t sure if he had imagined it. He found the spymaster’s freckled hand extended toward him at waist-level, holding a canteen dripping with wet condensation. Anduin bent forward and managed to take a long, awkward drink. Once the first taste of crisp, cold water hit his tongue, he could not stop himself from gulping it down in long, greedy swallows until the container was dry.

The nausea gradually abated as Anduin clung to the empty canteen and tried to breathe. As the room stopped spinning, it occurred to him that he should express some kind of gratitude, but he did not want to speak. With a shaking hand, he silently passed the canteen back. Shaw accepted the container and replaced the cap, letting it slide to the floor beneath him.

Anduin realized that another individual had been summoned to answer questions. The length of the floor seemed smaller, now, the scene of the nobles seated in their thrones closer together almost like a dollhouse. Dr. Breckenridge was now sitting in the chair where the king had been, moments before. The dwarf had also abandoned some measure of decorum to combat the heat, his tunic’s collar hanging loose, sleeves unbuttoned and rolled up to his hefty elbows. One rough hand clutched a delicate handkerchief.

“Aye, that’s right, I concur with the results brought forth by the mages of the Stormwind Circle,” Dr. Breckenridge said as he mopped sweat from his sun-beaten, ridged brow. “I found not a trace of dragon magic affecting His Majesty's person, nor any other kind of magic. Well, apart from the remnants of the Light which are infused within his bones, of course. But, obviously, that’s not draconic in nature and its origins are well known...”

“Can you offer any insight into what could be causing the king’s affection for the dragon?” Count Ridgewell asked.

“Dragons’ mortal forms are ethereal,” the physician shrugged. “An idealized version of whatever mortal form they are trying to imitate. Poets have wasted away attempting to capture their beauty in the printed word. There’s something about them that you humans in particular latch onto.”

“A tendency towards sin?” Lady Berrybuck goaded, her voice startling the other members of the committee. It was the first noise she had made during the entire proceeding.

Dr. Breckenridge waved his hand in the air, as if swatting away a fly. “I suppose that’s one way to put it, if you like. Sure.”

By the time the doctor was dismissed, servants were dispersed throughout the chamber, quietly handing out baskets of cold finger sandwiches, hunks of cheese, grapes, and jugs of wine. Anduin refused the food offered to him, not trusting his stomach. He considered the potion in his pocket as he watched others eat, weighing how tolerable the ache in his lower back was and wondering when he should drink it. Judging by the position of the sun, it was well into the afternoon, but it was difficult to tell how long the proceedings would last.

Something of a commotion picked up. Anduin didn’t understand what was happening until he noticed the doors were wide open on the opposite end of the room. His stomach dropped and his heart seized in his chest from apprehension, although he could not say why he was acting as if he were frightened. The spectacle of the nobles’ discussions came within view, and it took him a moment to fully comprehend what exactly he was looking at.

It was Wrathion.

The dragon’s lithe frame seemed small and slight, flanked by a procession of five guards wearing full metal plate armor and carrying swords pointed in his direction. They were trailed by three mages in similar battle regalia, the cloth hems of their robes hissing as they brushed across the polished wood floorboards. Their own magical instruments were drawn, casting a strange prismatic shimmer through the hot air as they walked.

Wrathion was stripped of his armor, he wore only one of his simple tunics and billowing pants. A thick trail of dried blood stained the front of the white tunic and he held his bruised left elbow at an awkward angle, wrists raised chest-high and shackled to the collar around his neck. Long, heavy chains from the same collar kept Wrathion tethered to the guards around him. It was difficult to discern the dragon’s expression, but the red glow peering out from behind the bent, metal strips of the muzzle strapped to his face was unmistakable.

As Wrathion took his ethereal, silent footsteps, his chains shimmered with delicate lines of rose-violet runes when they caught rays of sunlight. Anduin suspected it was some attempt at draconic suppression magic, of a similar family of runes to the ones stamped on his own manacles, though on Wrathion’s wiry frame, the setup somehow appeared...fragile. The king very much doubted that the restraints would actually hold if put to the test and this sentiment appeared to be shared by the soldiers and battle mages. They looked tense, visible stress lines creasing their summer-flushed faces, as if they were well aware of the fact that they were the first and only line of defense between an uncomfortable black dragon and Stormwind’s entire ruling class. The Black Prince was willingly submitting to this indignity out of some desire to humor the assembly.

Anduin stared at Wrathion’s face as the procession walked past, desperate to make some kind of eye contact, but the dragon didn’t seem to have noticed him. The dragon took a graceful seat at the examination seat, tipping his head forward as the muzzle was unlocked. He shook his long, dark hair out, tilting his head from side to side as he made a show of stretching his neck. Anduin felt his breath hitch as he was now able to see the giant bruise that covered the left side of the dragon’s cheek and jaw, almost sealing the eye shut.

Now that his face was unencumbered, Wrathion gave the court a confident, dazzling smile. Compared to the laden, sweating mortals, the dragon appeared cool and utterly unaffected by the heat, as if he had drifted in on a crisp, autumn breeze. The gesture was not returned by any noble seated on the Council. Genn’s brows were knitted, fingers drumming across the armrests of his throne as he sat a little straighter and narrowed his cold, sky-blue eyes.

“The House of Nobles summons Wrathion the Earth-Warder,” Count Ridgewell announced, frowning over the rims of his glasses. “Son of Deathwing the Destroyer, and leader of Blacktalon.”

“Indeed,” Wrathion’s voice, smooth and light as honey, effortlessly carried throughout the room. “It is the Black Prince whom you now sit before.”

Faint titters of laughter, of all things, drifted through the chamber as a brief breeze, the first of the day, drifted in through the open windows. Anduin felt as if he were losing his mind. This was a nightmare and any moment he would wake, unobserved and safe in a cocoon of bedsheets. He had made the right decision in refusing food.

“Do you understand the weight of the charges that have been placed upon you?” Count Ridgewell continued.

“The concerns of mortals, admittedly, differ in scale from those held by a Dragon Aspect.” Wrathion sounded bored, as if he were describing the plot of a tedious book instead of pleading for his right to exist. He spread his hands for a moment to give a few tugs on the chain that kept his manacles attached to the collar around his neck. “But I believe you have more or less made your point clear.”

“This is no trivial matter.” Genn’s voice suddenly boomed from the side; all heads on the noble Council swiveled to regard him. “I would expect a greater show of concern, if out of nothing but respect for the great harm your dragonflight has caused. The damage done to the Kingdom of Stormwind alone is only the start...”

“Yes, yes,” Wrathion gave a dismissive wave of one hand. “Dear Auntie Onyxia. She had the most vile ambitions; I have nothing to say in her defense. Her disregard for the fragility of mortal lives was inexcusable.”

Wrathion turned partially in his seat and raised his voice so that it rang clearly, to the tops of the rafters, as he addressed the entire assembly.

“I’m sure that every individual in this chamber can relate to the discomfort of having at least one relative they would rather not invite to holiday meals. I implore the Noble Houses of Stormwind to have pity on me, for my family tree once contained multitudes of them.”

More laughter, more mirthful this time. Anduin felt a combination of intense rage and weeping happiness churn in his gut. A strange, hysterical laugh of his own bubbled in his chest, threatening to vocalize itself. He choked it down, certain that if he started to laugh, he would not be able to stop and then he would be the one dragged away under new accusations of madness. He could not remember ever in his life being so angry and yet so relieved to hear the sound of someone’s voice. Genn looked livid.

“Help us to understand,” Count Ridgewell said over the jovial conversation occuring in the room's background, leaning forward in his seat. “How it is that your flight came into this...second renaissance? Our understanding was that the Old God’s corruption of Neltharion was absolute and through his influence, infected each and every member of your flight, including unborn whelps in the shell.”

“Ah, that was simply a bit of luck,” Wrathion said, his smile unwavering. “Life always finds a way to repair itself, given enough time.”

“Life also finds its way into the bowels of insanity and the depths of Hel if it’s not careful,” Genn interrupted, leaning so that his elbow was resting on his knee. “Yet somehow, after years of giving birth to the most vile creatures that ever wandered across the Titan’s skin, Deathwing just so happens to sire a perfect, clever son who grows up to become the savior of Azeroth?”

The old worgen snorted, shaking his head as his eyes narrowed.

“There are fairy tales about witches with graham cracker houses that are more believable.”

Anduin felt as if he would truly be sick. The tremor in his hands was so fierce it made the manacles rattle and he needed to clasp them between his knees. Wrathion seemed unperturbed.

“An unusual tale to be sure,” the dragon admitted. “But these are strange and wondrous days that we live in--”

“Can you not think of a better explanation, Black Prince?” Lord Wishock’s voice curled, ladened with mocking contempt, as he rose from his throne once again, like he had done when he had interrogated Anduin. He stepped towards Wrathion, adjusting the rolls of his wrinkled tunic sleeves. “Surely you should have come better prepared to explain what kind of scale-covered whore was able to--”

“ _STOP THIS AT ONCE._ ”

Anduin trembled with rage as he felt every eye in the room turn towards him, now standing on his feet a few heads above those sitting around him. Every eye except for Wrathion’s, who continued to stare at the Council ahead of him. For a moment, a venerated silence descended, as if it had turned into the halls of a church.

“King Wrynn,” Count Ridgewell was the first to recover, his glare sharp. “Sit down and do not speak until you are told to do so or we will see you gagged.”

Anduin’s fingernails dug into his palms, sharp and painful despite the layers of leather. He slowly sat back down, ponytail falling, every inch of him shaking.

“Where were we, now?” Wrathion’s voice was achingly smooth and unperturbed. “You wish to hear me describe the circumstances of my birth? Very well, if the Nobles of Stormwind so desire, I will start at the beginning, with the experiments of the Red Dragonflight on my mother, Nyxondra...”

Anduin could only sit and listen in horror, unable to stop the retelling of events. He had heard Wrathion speak of it once and only once before. He recounted the tale after waking up in the middle of a long, dark night, having nearly sliced Anduin's stomach open during an incomprehensibly vile nightmare that prompted the dragon to begin to transform in the king's bed. The story was told with some reluctance and a great deal of discomfort while Wrathion worked an enchantment to remove blackening blood from the royal bed sheets and Anduin used the Light to seal the deep wound. Anduin turned the Light to soothe Wrathion and spent what was left of the night rubbing the dragon’s back while he fell back into a fitful sleep.

Now, seated in the center of a room that held every single ear of Stormwind’s nobility, Wrathion recounted everything. Details that even Anduin hadn’t been privileged to hear were pulled out of him by curious, probing questions from the nobles. The dragon described how it felt to be torn apart within the egg, to have limbs and organs cleansed by the Titan device and swapped with those of others from his clutch. How he listened, trapped within his own shell-encased birthing fluids, too weak yet to hatch, as one by one, every other whelp in his clutch suffered as they slowly died from some form of organ failure or internal hemorrhage.

Anduin bit into the side of his tongue until he could taste blood in his spit. Wrathion drew attention to his arms to show the thick, dark rings of scar tissue from where his limbs had been torn apart and re-sewn. He instructed a guard to lift the hem of his shirt to display the long seam-like scars that ran up and down his sides as he described the process of interchanging dragon organs. Count Erlgadin stood up and departed from the room, handkerchief over his mouth. Genn’s face had hardened, leaning back only a fraction lower in his throne, his hand over his face to stroke his beard as he listened. Most faces of those who sat on Council looked nauseous by the time it was over.

“And the result is what you see before you,” Wrathion concluded, his tone as calm and detached as it had been when he started. “One perfectly uncorrupted member of the Black Dragonflight, whom Azeroth Herself saw fit to bestow the title of Earth-Warder.”

The room had gone deathly quiet; the jovial tone that accompanied Wrathion’s introduction was dead. Baroness Millstipe, seated at the very end of the row of thrones, was the first to recover. Her lace fan hadn’t stopped moving, a mechanical, well-practiced sinusoidal motion, causing strands of her gray-blonde hair to flutter.

“It comes as something of a shock that the Red Dragonflight would resort to such...cruel means,” she offered.

“Recall that these were desperate times, my lady, when the shadow of my father lay heavy over this world.” 

Anduin doubted the sincerity in Wrathon’s voice, recalling the memory of the dragon’s haunted red eyes in the dark.

“And one of the first lessons that your young king taught me in Pandaria was the power of forgiveness.”

All eyes flickered to Anduin.

“Indeed,” Baroness Millstipe continued. “To our knowledge, the Life-Binder has never publicly acknowledged these...experiments.”

“Yes.” Lord Vanyst was leaning back in his chair, hand stroking the point of his goatee. “They sound truly remarkable. Surely you must have looked into picking up their research, to rebuild your flight to its previous power?”

For the first time, Wrathion’s composure faltered, for only a fraction of a second. Anduin’s heart jumped, wondering if the other nobles had noticed, or if he had even imagined it, a mirage from the ripples of heat and arcana in the air around the dragon.

“The thought never crossed my mind,” the Black Prince said, his voice once again noncommittal. “My brother and I have been so occupied helping the Speaker in Silithus, the thought of hatching more uncorrupted dragon eggs from what remains of Deathwing's fossilized clutches seems a ridiculous prospect, apart from the fact that it is now virtually impossible. Two black dragons are more than enough for Azeroth, I’m sure everyone here can agree.”

Count Erlgadin returned to his seat, alternating between pressing a cool, damp cloth to his forehead and his neck. His face was still pale and clammy, his cheeks tinged gray.

“Surely you must hold some resentment towards the Red Dragonflight for this?” the count said, his voice hoarse.

“Not at all,” Wrathion replied. “The Life-Binder and I have reconciled. I find her philosophy admirable. She is loath to interfere in the business of mortals and encourages the rest of her brethren to do the same. I am certain that she could spare a few words to vouch for the sincerity of my character, if someone from Stormwind were to knock on the Wyrmrest Temple’s proverbial door and trouble her for a moment of her time.”

Lord Wishock scribbled a note and leaned over to whisper in the neighboring Lord Vanyst’s ear.

“And you have sworn to the Life-Binder’s philosophy as well?” Lord Vanyst asked.

“Indeed, I have no interest in mortal politics,” Wrathion said with a lift of his shoulders. “You'll forgive me for saying that I find them to be quite tedious, in fact, especially when compared to the business of protecting Azeroth. Every single Aspect has sworn that their flight shall not interfere in the business of mortals, as any member of the Wyrmrest Accord would inform you.”

“This is the current stance of the Black Dragonflight?”

“It is,” Wrathion said. “Now and for the length of time that I serve as its Aspect. I have far more pressing matters to attend to, such as the sword piercing the heart of the sleeping Titan I am sworn to protect.”

“Then we will ask again, Black Prince,” Count Ridgewell said, placing emphasis on each and every syllable. “If you have so many important tasks and concerns, if so much of Azeroth requires your unique talents and attention, why were you slinking through the halls of our Keep, seducing our king?”

Wrathion’s smile widened again. “I understand that my actions may be interpreted in a multitude of ways. King Wrynn no longer has a mother to chase away handsome scoundrels, so I humbly recognize, perhaps too late, that his kingdom has stepped in to fulfill that role. I can only assure Stormwind that my interests were strictly personal in nature. Perhaps it was foolish of me to take advantage of your king's willingness to humor my curiosity. I am unfamiliar with your customs and assumed that it would go unnoticed: the blame lies squarely upon my shoulders.

“For certain, Stormwind has no reason to trust the word of a dragon. Trust is difficult to earn, and I daresay I have stretched the patience of your kingdom to its limit. I offer that we dragons have a great curiosity and appreciation for the mortal form, it is not just myself but the Life-Binder, the very Queen of Dragons herself, who enjoys spending time in your skin. I merely wished to follow in her stead and experience that firsthand with a man I was once dear friends with, who just so happens to be your king.”

A loud series of banging noises resounded throughout the hall. Anduin flinched, searching for the source along with the rest of the nobility. It was Genn. The King Regent had slammed his fist repeatedly against the armrest of his throne.

“We are not here to philosophize about the nature of man and dragons,” Genn barked. “And there is nothing coincidental about any relationship, even friendship, with a prince or king of the Alliance. _Answer the question._ Why were you repeatedly spending your days and nights seducing our High King, _out of all the hundreds of thousands of mortals on Azeroth you could darken the doorstep of with your presence_?”

Wrathion faltered. His eyes glancing down at his lap as his chin dipped. It only took a moment, but within that space, Anduin felt a strange sense of calm wash over him, like Wrathion was now an eye in the center of a storm that was rolling around them.

Wrathion looked up, and spoke.

“Because I love him.”

The next sound Anduin registered was a metallic ringing in his ears. The king felt his face become unbearably hot, shoulders heaving to accompany his now labored breathing. He could not stop, the world around him blurring, temples throbbing from the excruciating headache, feeling as if any moment he would suffocate.

Fingers pinching his arm to cause a small amount of pain on purpose, grounding him, a silent plea from the spymaster to collect himself.

Anduin proceeded to do so, to the best of his ability.

He missed the last few exchanges of Wrathion's interrogation. The members of the Council were on their feet and in the process of exiting the chamber, a procession of frazzled-looking nobles with Genn close behind. Wrathion sat patiently, as if he had nothing better to do with his time. Anduin’s eyes were locked on his form, as still and as calm as one of the mountains behind the Keep. A hot resentment boiled under the king's ribs.

Anduin pulled the potion from his pocket and swallowed its contents, a rush of sharp medicine burning in his empty stomach. He returned the sticky vial to his pocket and proceeded to study the seams in his gloves, head hanging between his bowed shoulders, the heel of his left boot bouncing furiously on the floor as he waited.

It took barely an hour before the Council returned to the room. Genn once again took the center of the floor, the flat heels of his leather boots making loud sounds as he walked across the polished wood. As he paced, stroking his beard, the noise in the room died down. Wrathion watched the movement with an air of mild curiosity.

“It has been decided,” Genn began. “By unanimous decision, from all representatives of the collective, esteemed Noble Houses of the Kingdom of Stormwind, that the following judgement be passed:

“Anduin Wrynn, High King of Stormwind and of the Great Alliance of Azeroth, has shown a frightening lapse in his devotion to both his kingdom and to the Holy Light in succumbing to the carnal seductions of a member of Deathwing’s brood, the so-called uncorrupted Black Dragonflight, placing the kingdom at great peril.

“It is impossible for the Nobles of Stormwind to discern the true intentions of the Black Prince, Wrathion the Earth-Warder, and can only defer to the single fact that in choosing to defile the bed of not only a king but a High Priest of the Holy Light, he has made the conscious decision to pursue his own interests at the expense and disrespect of the kingdom’s relationship with the history of his flight, showing outright contempt for both the Law and the Church of Stormwind.

“With this knowledge, we declare that his intentions are, thus, suspect, at best. The Kingdom cannot run on the assumption of good intent, and it is with this judgement that we decree the following orders:

“The Prestor Edict, in its original incarnation under the reign of Varian Wrynn, shall be reinstated. Henceforth, any current, past, and future member of the Black Dragonflight is banned from entering the human territories of Elwynn Forest, Westfall, Darkshire, and Redridge. Attempted entrance into Stormwind City itself will be interpreted as an outright act of war by the Black Dragonflight and met with a response in kind.

“Furthermore, the following addendum shall be added: any past, current, or future sovereign of the Kingdom of Stormwind is forbidden from engaging in any kind of personal relationship, be it sexual, platonic, or friendly in nature, with any member of any dragonflight, under consequence of dethronement and subsequent lifelong imprisonment...”

Wrathion’s shoulders had gone rigid, though his expression remained as neutral and unchanging as it had been throughout most of the entire ordeal. Anduin desperately searched the dragon's face for some kind of emotion, but his guards hastily reattached the muzzle, once again obfuscating his features. Anduin could only sit and watch as Wrathion was jerked out of his seat and prodded into a rushed walk.

The king silently begged the dragon to turn around and meet his eyes, but Wrathion would not look at him.

Panic rose in Anduin’s throat and he stifled the impulse to call out, but with one last glimpse of the back of his dark hair and his white shirt, the dragon had already been whisked around the corner and disappeared into a corridor that led out of the chamber.

The sound of his name drew Anduin’s gaze back to the center of the room. The king rose to his feet, swaying on an unstable ankle, eyes wide as he stared into Genn’s face.

“..rynn is henceforth reinstated to full privileges as reigning monarch,” Genn was shouting over the din of voices in the hall and he laid a series of papers down on the council table, taking an offered quill and scribbling his name. “I relieve myself of the responsibilities that were bestowed upon me, and give up the position willingly, with this document decreeing an immediate transfer of power. Once again, I humbly thank the assembled for your trust during these uncertain times. May the grace of the Light look down upon us once more.”

Anduin's arms and legs jostled as a member of the kingsguard unlocked the pairs of shackles. His hands fell limp to his sides, elbows aching. All around him, a commotion stirred as the members of the nobility began to talk freely amongst themselves, gathering their belongings and finishing the last of the food. Shaw placed his hands atop the rail of the wooden barrier and swung his legs over, crossing the length of the floor to meet five members of SI:7 who had not inconspicuously gathered.

The sun was about to disappear below the horizon, the sky outside pink and dark yellow with just a hint of stars. Long shadows from the window frames were cast across the floor. A cool sea breeze at last began to drift through the windows just as the staff began to close and lock them, one by one, trapping in the day’s heat.

Anduin could only stand and watch without emotion as Genn approached him, hands clasped behind his back. Genn did not look happy, although his face had softened. He was once again only the King of Gilneas, the man who would sit down to dinner with him in the Keep’s royal parlor as they discussed matters pertaining to their kingdoms.

“I did my best to vouch for you, my dear boy.” Anduin found it curious to hear Genn's voice, speaking without a trace of malice. “I should warn you that the archbishop has departed to hold an emergency meeting of the priest conclave tonight. I expect you’ll be contacted by them soon.”

Anduin opened his mouth, briefly, but no words came out. Instead, he cleared his throat instead and nodded. Genn’s hand clasped his shoulder, a painful weight.

“I wanted to congratulate you for conducting yourself well,” the old worgen said. “It sounds like your civil demeanor helped distance you from the dragon in the Council’s eyes, apart from your single outburst. You at least managed to save some face today.”

Genn did look proud. Anduin studied his expression, realizing it was the first look of anything but indifference or contempt he had been afforded in months. It stood in stark contrast to the bold, gawking stares every noble gave him as they walked past on their way out of the chamber.

“It will be an uphill climb to restore integrity to your reign and repair the Wrynn family’s relationship and standing with the House of Nobles, but your father would not have been disappointed in your conduct today.”

Anduin mustered a small hum of affirmation, his gaze fixed on the neat square of a red handkerchief folded in Genn’s breast pocket.

“You ought to get some rest,” Genn said. “You’ve had a long day. I would join you to celebrate your freedom over dinner, but I have been neglecting my own duties at home while running your kingdom and I fear that Mia is at her limits. I will check on you soon, Anduin. Take care.”

His voice was warm and kind and utterly unbearable. The thought of eating sent a wave of sickening chills through his body. Anduin felt some small measure of confused abandonment when he felt the absence of the other man's warmth on his shoulder. He turned to stare at Genn’s retreating back until the other man was lost in the crowd.

Anduin turned to face the members of his kingsguard who had stayed behind. He managed to find his voice.

“I would like to visit the space where Wrathion is being held,” the king said, his voice soft and horse. When neither guard moved, he added: “If you would.”

The guards exchanged wary glances.

“We cannot do that, Your Majesty.”

Anduin felt his throat close, words of protest dying in his lungs. The guards were visibly tense and stared back at him with wary eyes. The king looked to the manacles awkwardly dangling from one of the guard’s gauntleted hands.

“You’re dismissed,” Anduin said. “Please, I would like to be alone.”

One by one, the members of the kingsguard departed. Anduin was left standing in the chamber, the only person who had lingered. For the first time in months, he was free to walk wherever he wanted.

He stood there, unmoving, while the last rays of the setting sun darkened around him.

“Your Majesty.”

Anduin turned around. Shaw was waiting a respectful distance away, hands clasped behind his back, face half-obscured in the shadows. He had abandoned his jacket and his cravat, the collar of his black tunic pushed open. He was flanked by three of the spies Anduin had seen earlier.

“With your permission,” the spymaster said. “We would like to escort you to the Keep as soon and as discreetly as possible. Tensions in the city are...high.”

Anduin continued to stare, saying nothing. His mind was strangely devoid of thought.

”Your Majesty?” Shaw said again, his voice quiet and patient, as if he would say it as many times as was needed, without hurry.

As if a switch had been flipped, Anduin jerked his chin to give a half-nod. He made a noise, attempting to clear his throat, the taste of potion thick and coating the back of his dry mouth.

“...you have my permission to proceed,” the king said.

Shaw gestured with a hand towards the door. Anduin took one step, then another, and soon was limping at a slow, but steady clip. Shaw stopped him when he turned in the direction of the front doors.

“This way, Your Majesty.”

Anduin followed Shaw down the hall and through a series of narrow staircases into the basement. The spymaster walked between rows of aging wine bottles, until he stood before the solid brick wall at the opposite end of the room. He brushed his hands over the surface, slipping his fingers in a groove he found between the stones. The spymaster's muscles tensed, stance widening as he pulled. A door came away, revealing a dark passageway.

“These connect to the escape tunnels beneath the Keep,” Shaw said, patting the hidden door as if it were a horse that he was particularly fond of.

The three SI:7 agents went first, bearing lanterns to illuminate the narrow, gray, cobweb and dirt-dusted walls. Anduin hesitated, gloved hand lingering on the doorway, resting his leg for a moment.

“I’m sorry to say it will be a bit of a walk,” Shaw explained, not unkindly.

Anduin let his hand drop, uselessly straightening the sweat-soaked collar of his jacket in a futile attempt to look less disheveled as he took a step towards the waiting agents.

“I’ll manage.”


	6. Silver Dagger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this is the second of two dead dove chapters with **extra content warnings**. There is a happier ending/catharsis at the end of this one, but **please read the following content warnings thoroughly before proceeding:**
> 
> **There is an attempted suicide in this chapter.**
> 
> **There are scenes with religious conversion therapy and abuse under religious institutions and parental/authority figures.**
> 
>  **The ableism towards Anduin is very strong in this chapter.**
> 
> There are things in this chapter that might not be suitable for those who have or are recovering from eating disorders and depression such as: loss of appetite, weight loss, body image issues, and suicidal thoughts.
> 
> Additional content warnings for this particular chapter are:  
> \- implied/referenced past child abuse  
> \- arranged/coerced m/f courtship  
> \- sexual harassment  
> \- discussions about lavender and arranged marriages  
> \- mentions of cis women's periods & cis pregnancy  
> \- mentions of two people in a prior marriage, neither of whom wanted to have sex with each other but did so regardless out of an obligation to have children.
> 
> **If you decide to skip, there will be a summary in the notes section for catch up in Chapter 7.**
> 
> Whatever you choose to read, thank you <3
> 
> Also, a huge thank you goes out to [Laeviss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laeviss/pseuds/Laeviss) for not only editing & being a beta reader for this chapter but going back and retroactively helping me edit this ENTIRE FIC of my many spelling and grammar mistakes. Without his work, this chapter wouldn't nearly be in the readable state that it's currently in. Thank you so, so much!

Don't sing love songs, you'll wake my mother  
She's sleeping here, right by my side  
In her right hand is a silver dagger  
She says that I can't be your bride

\- Dolly Parton

* * *

Stormwind was a secure, safely-guarded coastal city. Both the vast ocean and the tall mountains kept her protected on most sides in a way that other cities in the Eastern Kingdoms, such as Lordaeron, were not. The climate was also kind to her people; the winters were short and frequently snowless and the summers long and glorious. Anduin had always enjoyed them. No matter how dark and cold the Keep could be, during the summertime he could always step outside and wander through the verdant garden paths or sneak down to the coastline to creep across the sand and rocks. Deep breaths of sea-salt air with the sun kissing his face always made even the worst day seem a little more tolerable.

Anduin reconsidered this as another bead of sweat rolled down the side of his hot face. It sat on the tip of his chin where it itched, refusing to drop off. He shifted against the wood, knowing he wouldn't be able to reach it, but his hand twitched in that direction all the same, bumping against the edge of the hole his wrist was locked into. He had chugged down two entire healing potions before turning away breakfast that morning, hoping the effects would last long enough to endure the five hours he would be locked in the pillory in the heat of midday. This, of course, had been wishful thinking, but the numbness in his limbs and the lightheaded fog from too much medicine coursing through his system did soften the shock and panic of the first hour, making everything seem almost like a bad dream, or at least something he was watching from a distance. He had attempted to dress as he would for any other ordinary day of work in the throne room, but a priest had stripped him of his clothes and made him put on an abrasive, simple cotton tunic and breeches, the same kind the clergy wore beneath their robes during mass.

Anduin spent most of the time with his eyes trained on the wooden floor of the raised platform he stood upon, afraid to look up. But the Trade District was brimming with noise and an occasional shout or bang would startle him and draw his eyes out over the crowd. This was always a mistake; it was much easier pretending he was alone. This was the first time the pillories had been used since before Varian Wrynn's reign and they had been brought back to punish the king himself, no less, so the crowd was substantial. Anduin's father--or was it his mother?--had abolished the practice nearly two decades ago, but it had been revived by demand of the Church of the Holy Light, an emergency missive signed two days after the conclusion of the House of Nobles’ trial pertaining to the question of the Black Dragonflight’s influence over the monarchy of Stormwind.

There were fewer commoners gathered in the square than the king would have guessed. A significant number of nobility had turned out after church to gather underneath their parasols and hats, dressed in their best Sunday regalia, attempting to cool themselves with their summer fans. Anduin suspected this had been timed on purpose. The old pillories were still in a portion of Cathedral Square that sat close to the main road artery that led into the Trade District. In the past, they were mostly used by the Church of the Holy Light to punish those who committed minor crimes and sins that weren't severe enough for imprisonment or worse: things like stealing, lying, falling asleep during a service, taking the Light's name in vain too many times. They had never been torn down, repurposed by moderately adventurous children for climbing.

Anduin kept shifting in place, aching to straighten his back. Looking into the crowd from beneath hooded eyelids eventually became a source of distraction. The excitement and the novelty had worn off for everyone; the atmosphere in the square had shifted to accommodate its natural rhythm. There was trade that still needed to be done, corruption within the monarchy or no, and annoyed merchants and errand-runners were weaving in and out of the spectators, trying to do their business. There also seemed to be a few creative people looking to make their own excitement.

The next time the king looked up he spotted a small group of well-dressed men carrying what looked like a small crate filled with fruit. One was tossing what looked like a browning apple up in the air and catching it over and over again as he studied the king. Anduin bent and straightened his shaking left knee.

Suddenly, he caught sight of Shaw in the middle of the crowd. The spymaster had also spotted the crate of fruit and was weaving in and out on a nonlinear path towards it with surprising speed. Anduin wondered how he hadn’t noticed Shaw until then, then wondered why he was surprised that he had not noticed the head of his secret intelligence agency blend in with a crowd. Shaw was still a distance away when they were approached by someone in a light brown cloak, hood drawn up, wearing a silver mask shield guard around the lower half of their face. In the middle of summer.

Whoever they were, they were small, perhaps a head shorter than any of the noblemen in the group. Anduin watched with mild apprehension as their gazes were drawn down to the cloaked figure. They appeared to be listening, and whatever the masked figure was saying provoked increasingly agitated frowns. Anduin’s neck began to crick from maintaining the angle he needed to watch. He did not see exactly what happened next, but the wood crate shattered, fruit falling and splattering to the ground, and the man who had been tossing the apple was suddenly on his knees, howling in pain. The people in the area immediately around him turned and began to move, churning around the chaos like ants in a hive.

Shaw was no longer prioritizing subtlety as he picked up his footsteps to a run. Anduin saw three more SI:7 agents emerge from the crowd. A fourth operative tore after the figure in the brown cloak, who was now running away from the square. There was a great deal of shouting.

Anduin was unable to endure holding his head up any longer and let it hang in the pillory, head tingling as circulation began to flow differently.

To his relief, the crowd started to thin. SI:7’s presence seemed to dampen the festival atmosphere when it was clear they would not tolerate projectiles. Anduin braced himself when he noticed the guards did allow one lone figure to climb the steps and approach him on the platform. He didn’t dare look up until he noticed a waterskin being offered to him. The frightened face of Matron Nightingale peered down at him from behind the wraps of her sheer floral headscarf, wisps of grey hair escaping the spring green folds.

“Your Majesty,” she whispered, ducking her knees in a hasty attempt at an impromptu curtsy.

“...this isn’t necessary,” Anduin croaked. “I’ll be fine. The crowd could turn on you. The Church could come after you for interrupting.”

She had orphans to care for, for Light’s sake, but he didn’t dare voice his extremely specific and identifying concern, nor utter her name out loud. The matron’s brows furrowed, eyes narrowing. It was hard to discern her expression, but she thrust the waterskin nozzle up to his mouth. “It’s the least I can do, Your Majesty. You’ve been out here for hours, it’s the height of the day. Please, drink.”

Anduin realized that he’d lost count of the church bells, it was difficult to remember. He opened his mouth and managed to drink, cool streams dribbling down his chin when he gasped for air.

“Alright,” one of the guards said after a few moments. “He’s had some water, move along.”

Matron Nightingale barely managed to give a second quick curtsy and exchange a brief, worried glance before she was forced to turn away as she was escorted off the platform. The water did do some good to clear the throbbing in Anduin’s head and get him through the rest of the tedious hours, until the afternoon bell tolled three times. Anduin thanked the Light under his breath, locking his knee in preparation for being allowed to move again. Every joint felt stiff, his wrists were sore, and he was unable to turn his head without prodding tense, hardened muscles.

The sound of rattling footsteps alerted him to the presence of a guard walking up the short steps to the platform, approaching the pillory, brass keys jingling on a ring. The guard unlocked the padlock and lifted the top board. The king shifted his weight, leaning into the wood and pushing himself into a standing position on trembling joints. He took a few deep breaths, the square spinning around him as blood rushed away from his head. Fresh panic welled as he realized he was having difficulty supporting himself with his knee. His lower back felt as stiff as the wood he clutched under his bare hands.

"Your Majesty?"

Anduin looked over his shoulder. There were three guards standing on the platform. None of them looked particularly happy. They were decked out in heavy armor, baking in the sun.

"I'm not sure I can walk," the king explained, plainly.

"Perhaps you should try, Your Majesty."

Anduin nodded, finding no argument to make. He closed his eyes and murmured a prayer, pressing his palm to his hip, feeling the comfort of the Light flow into his limbs. His pulse settled and he found the resolve to do as the guard suggested.

He made it as far as two steps before his knee gave out and he pitched forward, catching himself with his palms on the hot, sun-baked wood. The guards stood and waited while he gained control over his breathing, sweat dripping down his face. He tried not to panic or think about how many cobblestones there were between Cathedral Square and the Keep.

"Would you please send for a horse to take me back to the Keep?" the king asked, voice calm, not looking up from the wood beneath him. "I should at least manage a saddle and reins..."

"We were instructed to escort you back to the Cathedral at this time, Your Majesty.” The guard in the center of the formation turned to the two standing at each flank. “Get him on his feet.”

Two pairs of gauntleted hands slipped under Anduin’s arms and hauled him up, pain shooting under his armpits as his shoulders were jerked. He found himself lifted onto his unsteady boots, flanked by two of the soldiers, who each swung an arm over their own broad shoulders so that he dangled between them. He looked up to see Shaw now standing at the edge of the platform, blocking the wooden steps that the guards were about to drag Anduin down, his face betraying a hint of an annoyed frown beneath his mustache.

“What’s this, now?” Shaw asked, almost curiously, as if he had stumbled across an odd artifact for sale in the Trade District and not the High King being roughly dragged away.

“The archbishop requested words with His Majesty,” the guards said. “You may accompany us, as I’m sure you will, but we were told that the audience will be a private one.”

Shaw’s green eyes found Anduin’s. The king nodded in assurance.

The spymaster pursed his lips but took a single, smooth step to the side. Anduin lost track of Shaw, focusing more on trying to keep pace with the soldiers supporting him. He counted the steps they took across the bridge, over the courtyard, and up the steps in front of the Cathedral of Light. Some of the stiffness had shaken out of his limbs and he was able to mostly carry his own weight up the stairs as the guards brought him to the grand double-doors, where two lower-ranking priests who saw to the care and keeping of the foyer met them. They watched with mild interest as Anduin tested his weight again and found he was able to more or less take his own steps. One of the priests lent his shoulder for the king to heavily rest one hand upon for support. They paused, so that each man could dip their fingers into the marble basins just inside in the doorway and sprinkle holy water across his own forehead, lips, and breast. 

Anduin was led to the reliquary, to the side of the main foyer that housed the tabernacle altar and benches for service. The bones of Saint Joan, one of the few women who had served amongst the Clerics of Northshire were enshrined in a small glass cabinet at the reliquary’s altar. The king was instructed to kneel on a hard wooden prayer bench, which he did, letting his elbows rest on top with his hands folded in prayer.

“I will inform the archbishop of your arrival,” one of the priests said. “In the meantime, you should contemplate in prayer to prepare yourself for his presence.”

The first priest disappeared. The second priest sat in the first pew to the left of Anduin’s side, watching with his hands in the folds of his robe across his lap. Anduin let his gaze rest on the air-tight case where Saint Joan’s dark skull sat in a crown of her finger bones, a faint shimmer of Light enveloping the glass. Letting his focus soften until the periphery of her dark eye sockets were a blur, he began to murmur a familiar prayer, just audible enough for the other priest to hear. 

The Light responded to his call and he felt the energy, already in abundance within the walls of the holy Cathedral, flow through him. The golden tendrils enveloped his bones and seeped into his sore muscles, easing the lines of tension in his brow. The sensation of a hand coming to rest on his shoulder caused him to turn his head, but no one was standing there. He let himself be lulled by the familiar smell of incense, the sight of the stained glass windows letting in a gentle, rosy light. As he prayed, the grace of the Holy Light continued to flow through him, easing the pain in his joints and soothing his anxiety. Even the sound of multiple soft boots approaching from behind did not alarm him before he felt the hands on his shoulders. This time, when he looked, there were two priests shadowing him.

“Come, my son. It is time to face judgement.”

Anduin rose to his feet, feeling almost weightless. The pain in his legs was gone and he was able to walk without much hindrance out of the reliquary and into the main chamber of the Cathedral of Light. Sunlight streamed in through the stained-glass windows and fell over the gathering of priests. The pews were filled with faces that he knew well, the men and women of Stormwind who served alongside him as priests of the Church of the Holy Light. They rose from their seats and stared at him as he strode down the aisle. The members of the clergy were seated by the weight of their position, the novices and acolytes in the rear, the high Bishops towards the front.

In the high-backed wooden thrones around the altar were Bishop Hylan, Bishop Leander, and Bishop Neheri, their faces rigid in condemnation, as if they were carved from the same stone as those of the statues that bordered the chamber. Anduin glanced over the other faces in the assembly with little concern. For the first time in months, Anduin felt as if a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. It occurred to him, suddenly, that he felt peace at the idea of meeting his death in that moment, with his soul utterly unburdened. 

At the head of the aisle, standing directly in front of the altar, was Archbishop Arthur, looking down on the king during his approach. The archbishop was adorned in his full silk robes and embroidered miter, hands folded demurely before him. He was flanked by four armored priests, who came around to join the two who had accompanied Anduin. The king gave no reaction to being surrounded. He dutifully knelt on the lowest step that led up to the altar, hands clasped the way they had been during his prayer in the reliquary.

“Light be with you,” the archbishop said, extending his right hand.

Anduin bent forward and kissed the large, sapphire setting of the ecclesiastical ring on the archbishop’s hand. His nostrils flared from the faint scent of cologne, likely dabbed on the wrist.

“And also with you, Archbishop,” the king murmured in response.

The archbishop turned and extended his hand in gesture to one of the altar boys, standing at the far end of the platform. The altar boy took small, quiet steps forward, dropping to one knee at the archbishop’s left-hand side, holding up the square velvet pillow. Something dark and circular sat in the center. Anduin felt a strange pricking behind his left temple when he glanced at it out of the corner of his eye. The altar boy had a frightened look on his face; the satin, golden tassels and fringe on the pillow jostled from the tremor in his hands.

“By the power vested in me through this sacred institution by the almighty grace of the Holy Light, I declare that you, Anduin Llane Wrynn, have fallen from your ordained path as a High Priest. The Church of Stormwind cannot permit one whose soul is so burdened with mortal sin to channel the Light in all its power and glory.”

The archbishop picked up the item cradled in the altar boy’s pillow and held it aloft for the assembly to see. He swept it from one side of the room to the other, as if it were a communion wafer. Anduin could see now that it was a kind of metal ring, like a shackle. Golden runes shimmered on its surface.

“You will wear this manacle in penance, until the day may come when you are once again worthy of the Light’s grace.”

The archbishop pointed to Anduin’s right hand. The king obediently extended his arm and watched as the device was fastened around his wrist. As soon as the lock clicked, the iron burst into white-hot flames for a moment. The hot metal warped and immediately tightened. Anduin choked back a cry and doubled over where he knelt. A deep, burning pain streaked through what felt like every single one of his bones. In panic, his fingers tore at the iron, even as he knew that no amount of pulling would tear it from his wrist. 

Feeling the eyes of the entire conclave on him, Anduin hunched his shoulders and steeled his jaw, pressing the heel of his palm into his thigh. He breathed through the pain while staring at the embroidered hem of the archbishop’s robes. Once the worst of it seemed to have passed, the king chanced a glance down at his hand. The skin was red and swollen, veins bulging from the stress. More distressing was the abrupt, definite absence of the Light. The ethereal, soothing aura was gone, leaving him empty and adrift, with nothing to hold onto but his own brittle, mortal frame.

“We had such high hopes for you, Anduin.” The archbishop studied the king from above with a distant, contemplative look on his face. “You appeared to be well on your way to eventual canonization, our beloved Gentle Lion of Azeroth. But let this be a lesson to all of us: even the purest of naaru are not incapable of falling from grace. Why should we mortals think ourselves any different?”

The archbishop stepped forward. His hand cupped Anduin’s jaw, thumb brushing across his chin.

“Perhaps through his penance, we will all of us become a little closer to the Light.”

Anduin said nothing, half-dazed by the burning pain still pricking at his wrist and forearm, but he nodded in agreement.

“Do you have anything to say for yourself, my son?”

Anduin struggled to pull together a coherent thought. The fingers of his right hand were clenched into a tight fist, the fingers of his left still clasped in vain around the shackle.

“...I will strive towards repentance,” he managed, voice steady even as a bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. “Under your guidance, to seek the Light’s forgiveness, so that one day I might find myself worthy of its grace again.”

The king tried not to flinch as the archbishop bent forward, robes brushing the carpet over the stone floor. A heavy hand came down on top of Anduin’s head, pushing the king forward until he was bowing over his knees.

“Go not in sin, Anduin,” the archbishop’s voice commanded from somewhere above. “And should you forget yourself, when you feel the heat of burning iron on your wrist every time that you attempt to pray, may it serve as a reminder that when you forsake the Light, you not only do harm to yourself, but to your entire kingdom.”

* * *

The royal parlor was bathed in the light of the setting sun, orange and yellow rays illuminating the floral wallpaper. The king lay on the sofa in front of his parlor’s fireplace, his right hip supported by a cushion he had taken from beside one of the armrests. Anduin had been staring at the same spot on the ceiling for the better part of an hour, taking note of the way the shadows lengthened across the wooden railings. The upholstery rubbed against what promised to be a painful sunburn spread across the patch of skin on the back of his neck and shoulders. He hadn’t bothered to undress; the wrinkled tails of his unbuttoned dark blue coat flared around him, boots elevated on top of the armrest on one end of the couch. His spine ached with relief at finally being able to lie down and he could not bring himself to move again as he tried not to think of the Light’s absence, or the now-distant memory of how good its blessing had felt in the reliquary.

Anduin’s gloved hands lay on top of his chest, left wrist wrapped around the pronounced iron band he could feel through the buckles on his embroidered coat sleeve. Every now and then, his right-hand fingers would twitch at the occasional stray tingle or burn. The Light-suppressing runes had settled a great deal, but they were still reacting to the cold, dormant Light that resided in his bones, from when Velen had stitched parts of him together after the Divine Bell had crushed him. The archbishop insisted that the pain would reach equilibrium over time.

“Anduin?”

A cold streak of unease gripped the king’s chest as he heard the parlor doors creak open. He lay very still, hidden from the unexpected visitor by the back of the couch, as if he would sink into the cushions and disappear if only he could manage not to breathe. While the sound of Genn’s boots continued in steady approach, Anduin kept his practiced gaze trained on the ceiling.

“I invited myself over for dinner to see how you were doing.” Anduin could just make out Genn’s gray-lined face in the periphery of his vision. “I thought you would appreciate some company.”

The king closed his eyes for a brief moment.

“Thank you for your consideration, Genn, but I don’t think I’m feeling up to hosting tonight.”

Genn was now peering down at him, one hand resting on the back of the couch. “Have you eaten anything at all today?”

Before Anduin had a chance to think of a reply, the parlor doors opened again and he heard the sound of a cart on wheels, catching a whiff of charcoal and fried oil.

“...I’d just like to lie here for a bit,” Anduin replied, deflecting the question. “I’ll head down to the kitchens and fetch some leftovers if I get hungry later.”

“Nonsense.” 

Genn’s footsteps picked up as he briskly made his way around the couch. Anduin felt a strong, unrelenting hand take his arm.

“You there, come help me. The king needs a hand getting to his dinner table.”

Byron’s guarded, uncertain face also came into view. The servant stared pointedly at Anduin, who just nodded in allowance as he struggled to rise with Genn’s hand pulling him. Byron quickly came around and hoisted the other king’s arm over his shoulders, murmuring encouragement.

Soon Anduin was seated at the head of the parlor’s table, vision rocking as he watched Byron set to work distributing porcelain dishes. Genn had arranged for a substantial amount of food from the kitchen. There was a generous chunk of seared tenderloin and roasted red potatoes drizzled in oil and rosemary. Crisp summer green beans that smelled faintly of lemon sprinkled with a generous coating of rough, glittering chunks of salt. A basket of golden bread rolls accompanied by butter. An entire chocolate cake beneath a crystal glass serving dish. Hot coffee brewing in a glass and gold press.

“Do you require anything else this evening, Your Majesties?” Byron asked as he finished lighting the candles on the table, shaking out the match.

“No, thank you,” Genn replied. “That will be all. Leave us now to speak in private.”

Byron gave a deferential bow to each of the kings and turned on his heel, closing the doors quietly behind him. Anduin focused on unfolding his napkin and smoothing it across his lap, trying to ignore how stiff his wrists and neck were. Genn began to pile both of their plates with spears of steak loin.

“That’s enough,” Anduin said, holding one hand up as he reached for the tongs to begin serving himself green beans. “Thank you.”

Anduin added what he felt was a modest amount of potatoes and vegetables to his plate and began picking at one of the rolls. He broke the golden crust, steam wafting upward from the soft, spongy interior. Looking for something to do with his hands, the king reminded himself, not for the first time that week, that he had permission to access things like sharp utensils at his own table again. He swept the knife repeatedly over a small pat of butter, watching it melt and soak into the bread’s bubbled tufts.

“I think the thing I miss most about Wyll is that that man seemed to have no difficulty getting you to eat when I wasn’t around to do it,” Genn remarked as he spooned a generous helping of garlic cream sauce onto his plate next to the bloody tenderloin. “You seem a bit thin. Was this new fellow not feeding you well while you were confined in here?”

“Yes, he was,” Anduin replied, setting the uneaten roll down on the edge of his plate. He switched to his fork and steak knife, concentrating on slowly shaving a thin slice of tenderloin from the hunk Genn had piled on his plate. The iron manacle banged against the edge of the porcelain until he lifted his wrist at an awkward angle.

“It’s just I can’t help but feel guilty,” Anduin said as he studied the red, dripping meat he had speared on his fork. “Knowing that I’m stuffing myself with extravagant delicacies while there are those elsewhere suffering because of the delays this coup has caused.”

Genn made a huffing noise while he finished chewing.

“I see your extra time spent with the more devout members of the Church has already begun to have an effect on you,” the worgen remarked around the last bits of meat stuck between his teeth. “Keep in mind that the responsibility that comes with your breeding and station does entitle you to some luxuries. It isn’t easy running a kingdom, you should take every opportunity to indulge and relieve your burdens while you can.”

Anduin shifted in his seat, brows furrowing slightly at the persistent cramp in his hip. He dropped his fork, meat uneaten, and reached for his wine glass instead. He took a long drink, shoulders loosening as he felt the fresh warmth bloom in his chest. Genn’s sharp eyes were trained on him.

“This isn’t about the dragon, is it?” the King of Gilneas’ voice sharpened as his fork rapped against his plate. “Some kind of self-righteous hunger strike?”

“No. It is not.” Anduin kept his eyes lowered as he picked up the roll again and bit off a chunk. 

He chewed. And chewed. Genn continued to watch. The mood in the room had shifted, the worgen’s utensils scraping at the porcelain with more force. After a while, the old worgen shook his head and worked towards carving a fresh chunk of meat.

“That dragon is going to be released,” he growled. “He won’t be chewing stale crusts in the stockades for much longer, so you can stop this childish protest.”

Anduin swallowed the dry lump of buttered roll. He reached for his wine glass again, the cuff of his sleeve pulling back to reveal the manacle in the gap between his shirt cuff and the hem of his glove. He took note of how traces of the Light-suppression runes glinting across his wrist in the candlelight.

“Forgive my poor company, Genn,” Anduin said, reaching up to rub the back of his sun-burned neck. “It’s not my intention to be melancholy. It was...a difficult day.”

Genn gave a grunt in acknowledgement before tearing into his own roll.

“Yes, of course. I realize that today might not have been the easiest to endure,” the worgen allowed. “But it’s unbecoming to wallow.”

As he spoke, Genn waved the uneaten hunk of bread, as if he were conducting a lecture to an invisible audience standing around the edges of the white tablecloth.

“Stormwind’s culture seems to have softened somewhat in recent decades. Light knows I put Liam in the stocks more times that I can remember, mostly for causing too much of a drunken ruckus in public with sons of the other noble families of Gilneas. It was good for him to have the occasional reminder that, as the crown prince, he had a greater duty to set a good example for the other nobles, particularly young men around his age, and he always took the lesson in stride. Pride is a sin too, Anduin.”

Anduin turned his wine glass around in place on the table, studying the candles’ distorted flickering through the dark red liquid.

“You are still the High King,” Genn continued. “Tomorrow, you’ll take your place on the Lion’s Seat, listen to the nobles’ pleas, and make decisions, just the same as any other day. Likewise, they will defer to your orders with no more backstabbing than usual.”

Anduin nodded in deference.

Genn cleared his throat, helping himself to a fresh portion of dripping tenderloin. A small spatter of red juice flecked the white tablecloth. “Speaking of petitions, I have one or two items that I would like to briefly bring up, if you could muster a bit of patience.”

Anduin lowered his fork, leaning back in his chair. He considered the depth of his wine glass. “Of course, Genn.”

Genn took another bite, looking thoughtful as he chewed, as if he were deliberating his exact choice of words.

“I wanted to warn you that a number of nobles will be approaching you later next week to submit a joint petition. They want you to host a ball for the entire nobility here in Stormwind Keep, before the summer’s end. There is a hunger to restore some normalcy after this...instability.”

Anduin sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “...thank you. I will prepare a response.”

The noncommittal nature of his answer did not go unnoticed by the other king, who picked up the vigor of his chewing.

“I understand that balls aren’t the...most ideal way to meet people,” Genn conceded. “It can be difficult for a man to hear himself think amidst all the noise, nevermind hold a conversation. I understand that it can be especially daunting for someone such as yourself who is only used to socializing under coercion.”

Anduin took another drink.

“I am prepared to shoulder some fault in that,” Genn said. “I should have realized sooner the precariousness of the position your father left you in. Liam and Tess both had ample opportunity to learn social graces, even considering the extraneous circumstances. Mia and I did ensure Tess’ education continued, though, as difficult as that was to do in Darnassus. I realize that Stormwind faced its own difficulties, too, but Varian, it seems, was a little more lax.”

Anduin ran a hand over his face, biting a well-worn raw groove in the side of his tongue. Genn’s voice softened somewhat and the man leaned forward, gesturing with his hand as if he meant for Anduin to take it in his own.

“I would like to offer my services in teaching you the proper ways of courtship,” the worgen king said. “Believe it or not, I was a young man with shy friends too. I understand how difficult it can be for some men to learn how to approach a woman if they’ve never been given guidance.”

Anduin cleared his throat, clogged somewhat by the wine. He had at last begun to feel the faint effects of alcohol in his system, but wished he wasn’t.

“Thank you, Genn, I appreciate that you would consider taking the time,” the younger king said. “Truly, I know these past several months have been difficult for you, as well, and you have enough to catch up on without worrying about me. But, please, rest assured that I have been taught enough in the ways of social graces. I can manage this on my own.”

Genn frowned. “Anduin, you’ve said this for years. You’ve yet to attend a single event with the intent of presenting yourself as socially available. You didn’t even make a showing at your own coronation ball.”

Anduin was surprised to feel an old, familiar pang curl its heavy fingers around his chest. He had spent that evening in the Cathedral, attempting to find solace from his grief and his new crown in prayer. Arthur, who back then was simply a bishop, had kindly helped keep the new king’s presence in the Cathedral discreet.

“It was not a pleasant time.” Anduin chose his words with care.

“Yes, yes, believe me, I know. The invasion of the Burning Legion, your bereavement, the War of Thorns, the Fourth War, the assault on the Eternal Palace, the liberation of Mechagon, expunging N’zoth.” Each item prompted Genn to curl a finger of his raised fist. “I’ve implored you to socialize every single time we have a spell of peace and you have yet to listen. How long do you think this current accord will last?”

“A very long time, by the Light’s grace,” Anduin found his voice strengthening. “This time is different. The Horde and the Alliance are in lock-step with each other’s armistice goals. The Horde is also no longer subject to the volatile whims of a single Warchief, they will now need support from each member on its Council to declare war on the Alliance again…”

“Anduin.” Genn tapped his fist against the edge of the table, shaking his head as if to brush the words aside. “Come, now, you are far too old to be behaving like a child avoiding lessons with his tutor. You can no longer hide your real reasons for delaying courtship; it has nothing to do with the cost of hosting a ball or your busy schedule.”

Words failed Anduin. The king turned his head away, staring at a patch of candlelight on a painting of Elwynn Forest on the wall, Blackrock Mountain a mysterious red peak beneath the setting sun. He recalled the many times Wrathion had wandered over to that spot, fascinated with the three or four simple but careful brush strokes that depicted his ancestral home.

“You do not have to do this alone,” Genn continued, holding nothing but warmth in his gruff voice. “Mia and I can help you draw up a list of eligible, agreeable young women from both Stormwind and Gilnean lineages in our social circles. We can find a barber to cut your hair into something more appropriate, and tutors for you in conducting amicable social conversation and dancing...”

“Absolutely not.” Anduin tightened the grip on his fork, the tips resting uselessly on the edge of his plate. He had yet to touch any of the meat. “Again, thank you for your thoughtfulness, Genn, but I will take the necessary steps myself in due time. I need just a week or so to catch my breath. My head will be better equipped to think of planning balls once I’ve gotten through the backlog of work.”

Anduin gestured to his once-bare desk, now laden with teetering stacks of parchment: notices, missives, and reports that had built up during his months of imprisonment. Genn sat back in his chair, eyes focused on his own plate. He took a long drink of wine, nearly draining his entire glass.

“If you refuse my help in this matter,” his voice had hardened into the tone he used when dictating terms in the War Room. “I will withdraw my support for your funding package for Westfall farmers.”

Anduin put down his fork. He lowered his hands into his lap and clasped them tightly underneath the tablecloth until his knuckles whitened, the scar tissue stretched thin over bone.

“In fact, I will put forth vocal opposition to it,” Genn continued, staring pointedly at the younger king from beneath the furrows of his heavy gray brows. “I will persuade as many other nobles as I can to do so as well. The money can be put to better use elsewhere, such as to support the military up north…”

“The war is _over_ ,” Anduin raised his voice another octave. “What is there in the north that requires that amount of funding?”

“Gilneas.” Genn’s darkened eyes flashed, almost yellow in the candlelight, anger just barely restrained at the edge of his tone. “Lordaeron. We must reclaim our lost territory from the long shadow of the Banshee Queen. She’s still out there, after all What fools will we look like if we allow her to snatch either city out from under us while our attention is focused on those backwater miscreants in _Westfall_ \--?”

“Lorederon is in ruins,” Anduin interrupted, a strange feeling coming over him, as if someone else had come to inhabit his body. “You were there. You saw the blight. There is no recovering it. It will take centuries for the traces of poison to decay, and it is unclear if the soil will ever be suitable for crops again, no matter how many thousands of druids work tirelessly to lay blessings upon it. Light knows what they’ve done to Gilneas and Silverpine in your absence…”

“Gilneas is owed territory.”

“You’ve integrated into Stormwind,” Anduin found himself shouting. “To the point where you were entrusted to lead a military coup. The House of Nobles wouldn’t have dared risk giving you so much power if they thought there was the slightest chance that Gilneas would be rebuilt in the near future.”

In the silence left by Anduin’s words, Genn’s fingers tightened around his fork and knife. The worgen had gone almost completely still, but the rage emanating from his form was palpable. It was unclear how he would choose to handle that anger. Anduin braced himself for the change. The younger king slowly lifted his hands to slowly unbutton his shirt collar, so that he could then casually bring them to rest on top of the table, closer to his own knife.

“Everything I have done since you took the crown, every sacrifice I have made, has been for the longevity of your reign.” When Genn spoke, his voice was low and measured, but the threat of his anger hung on every word. “You need _allies_ , Anduin. You cannot afford to abandon Gilneas, or myself. It is unfathomable to me that after everything that has occurred, you _still_ do not seem to fully comprehend the gravity of your situation.”

He jabbed a finger at Anduin’s right wrist, still locked within the manacle.

“You know what you must do to prove that you are a worthy vessel of channeling the Holy Light. If you take a wife as queen and sire heirs, what more proof would the archbishop need of your repentance?”

Anduin sat staring at the candles on the table. Bile had begun to rise in his gut, his chest hitching as he drew his next breath.

“You are right, Genn,” he heard himself say, his voice distant. “As usual. If Mia would be so kind as to inquire, I would be glad to hear her thoughts regarding a suitable arrangement for courtship.”

Genn nodded, his weight settling as he relaxed back into his seat. He picked up his fork again, jabbing it in the direction of the other king’s plate. 

“Eat.”

Anduin worked his way through most of the food on his plate. He drank another glass of wine and managed a bite of cake. As Anduin chewed, he listened to Genn recount the most crucial events pertaining to the kingdom that took place during his time spent in confinement. It was late in the evening by the time Genn retired, leaving Anduin slouched over a stack of notes at his desk, cradling a nearly empty wine glass. His head was swampy and the ache in his leg and shoulders was so persistent he could no longer think past the pain.

The king left his wine glass on his desk and made his way through the parlor, opening every window and pushing aside the curtains as he went. Eventually, something of a strong, cool evening breeze drifted through the tower chambers. Anduin unlatched the balcony doors and stepped outside, closing his eyes for a brief moment in relief as he inhaled deeply and approached the balustrade, letting his palms rest on the roughly polished stone. He leaned over and studied with bleary eyes the patterns of the wind moving through the bushes below. The last of the day servants were leaving for the evening, the ones who had family to return to in the city making their way back home. He ran his thumb over the edge of the iron shackle and noted that if he were to jump now, he would be unable to cast the levitation spell and save himself from an ill-fated landing in the bushes. Vertigo drew him away, back into the parlor, and he shut and locked the balcony doors behind him.

Anduin resumed opening the windows in both the bedroom and the bathroom, stopping to loosen his hair band and dig out a potion from the cabinet. He took three long swigs, rubbing a hand over his chest just below his collarbone, the first beginnings of a Light-channeling prayer forming in his mind as he exchanged a curious glance with his own exhausted reflection. The burning at his wrist reminded him that he would be unable to soothe himself with the Light as he fell asleep, as he had done every night since the trial after SI:7 had instructed the mages of the Stormwind Circle to remove the wards and locks from the windows in the royal chambers. He tried not to think of how long that comfort would be denied to him in the future.

Anduin stripped off his clothes and left them in a pile on the bathroom floor, dressing for bed in only his small-clothes. He removed his prosthesis and lay on top of the bedcovers so that he could enjoy the feeling of the fresh breeze on his skin while he waited for the potion to take hold and allow him a chance to sleep.

* * *

Before dawn, the streets of Stormwind were mercifully empty in the cool late summer air. The King of Stormwind quickly walked through them, an old brown cloak drawn low to cover his golden hair. He was dressed in a simple cotton tunic and breeches, but his boots would have given him away if anyone were around to look at him too closely: rich, supple brown leather held together by fine stitching, the soles well-worn from walking, but not in the way that they would have been if he were unable to afford a new pair. The silence allowed him to listen to the distant murmur of the waves breaking on the rocks in the harbor and the gulls crying as they made their rounds. There was something freeing about the solitude, as tired and sore as he was, he almost felt unburdened from the anonymity of the journey.

Crossing the final bridge into Cathedral Square, the sight of the white facade brought a dark ribbon of apprehension to twist in Anduin’s empty stomach. The king hurried around the back, entering through a small side door as he lowered his hood. He paused to dip his fingers into the bénitier and bless himself before crossing the threshold into the silent halls. The Cathedral was mostly quiet, staffed with a few priests who were in charge of handling the early rounds to care for the patients in the backrooms. They barely gave the king more than a nod in respect as he made his way to a side chamber, where the priests and altar boys normally prepared for mass. Anduin stripped down to his small-clothes and slipped on a simple, cotton robe, tying a tasseled cord around his waist to secure it. He left his street clothes, his mother’s locket, his gloves, and his boots folded in a neat pile on a bench and made his way downstairs into the Cathedral basement, near where the entrance to the catacombs loomed.

Archbishop Arthur sat waiting for him in the small windowless room where the parish usually taught its catechism classes. The walls of the room were slightly cracked and bore one or two paintings of notable saints and paladins. Though no natural light shone in, gnomish lanterns were strung across the ceiling, bathing the room in a bright, inescapable light. On one side stood a chalkboard, half-erased from the last lesson taught there. Anduin recognized a list of the Church of the Holy Light’s sacraments: confession, communion, and confirmation, words he had learned by heart after his baptism, when the human church had officially declared him an aspirant on the path towards priesthood.

The archbishop was dressed in simple black robes and sandals, a golden chain bearing a pendant carved into the symbol of the Church of the Holy Light dangling down the front. He waited on one side of a makeshift confessional table arranged on the far side of the room. Anduin took a moment to genuflect before the archbishop, laying a kiss on the ring of the hand he offered him. He looked up to find him beckoning him with the crook of a finger. Anduin dutifully extended his right hand. His fingers twitched as the other man traced the red, irritated skin beneath the rune-stamped iron.

“How has your journey of mortification been thus far, my son?” the archbishop asked.

When Anduin spoke, it was barely more than a murmur, but the silence in the room and the bareness of its walls made his voice reverberate off the painted stone. 

“...I am having some difficulty writing with it. I wanted to ask if you would consider locking it around my non-dominant hand instead.”

The archbishop smiled and clasped Anduin’s scar-laced hand between both of his, sending a small tingle through the bones.

“Adversity is the Light’s way of testing us,” the archbishop chided. “When distracted by the inconvenience, you should take the opportunity to reflect on how you ought to not let your mind wander towards intrusive thoughts, even while you are attending to your more tedious duties at your desk.”

“Yes, Archbishop,” Anduin murmured in response, fingers twitching. “I will take the opportunity.”

“Good.” With a shake, the archbishop released Anduin’s hand, and the king let it drop back down at his side. “Let us proceed, then.”

Anduin knelt on the other side of the confessional booth, folding his hands in prayer on the bench’s top rest. He licked his lips and began:

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been one day since my last confession and these are my sins:

“Yesterday I looked pridefully on my subjects as they came before me at the base of the Lion’s Seat. I entertained the thought that they were spiritually and intellectually beneath me, as I lorded above them dressed in gold.

“I then showed them malice by lying. I did not approve Lord Remington’s request to seize the Shiloh family’s farm, not because his formal paperwork had been lost, but because I know from a separate petition that the family has come down on difficult times. I intend to show leniency so that they may pay off their debts, but I have deceived Lord Remington by keeping him ignorant.

“I have also despaired in my faith in the Light’s ability to forgive. I continuously dread that the Light will not welcome me back into its embrace.”

Anduin’s hands had grown cold, and he clenched them to keep them from shaking as the blood seemed to freeze throughout his entire body.

“That is all, Father. I am sorry for these and all my sins.”

The king’s words waivered slightly on his tongue as they came out. After a tense moment, the archbishop’s words returned, soft through the filter of the screen:

“Is that really all that you can remember, Anduin?”

Anduin said nothing.

“Have you truly stopped thinking of the dragon so soon?”

Even before the archbishop finished his sentence, Anduin’s thoughts did turn towards a vision of Wrathion, watching him from the opposite side of the room. He could almost see the disbelieving smirk on the dragon’s keen face as he leaned against the wall with his arms folded: Wrathion watching them with his sharp, observant red eyes, crinkled just slightly at the corners like they did whenever he tried not to smile too broadly. _Is this truly how men of the cloth think they can become closer to the naaru, Anduin Wrynn? Ridiculous…_

“Anduin.”

The voice that spoke his name was now a shade sterner, with less room for compromise. The king felt his face burn with shame as he forced himself to focus. The analytical Earth-Warder wouldn’t have found any of this amusing.

“I still think of the dragon,” Anduin finally admitted. “Often. Thoughts of him plague me now and then throughout the day and hound me into the evening. I miss his warmth in my bed at night.”

A contemplative hum drifted through the gaps in the wood screen. Three shadows of the archbishop’s profile pressed against the film from the strange angles of the harsh light, three chins dipped as the archbishop bowed his head in thought.

“Well done, my son,” the archbishop soothed. “For the sin of pride, I bid you to say twelve Acts of Contrition. For the sins of malice and deceit, I bid you to say ten Glory Be to the Light and nine Blessings to the Holy Naaru. For the sin of doubt, I bid you to say fifteen Acts of Contrition.”

The archbishop rose to his feet. Anduin watched out of the corner of his eye as the priest walked over to the closet, tugging open the strings securing the top of a thick burlap sack, pulling out a silver scoop filled with dry white rice. He walked to the center of the bare room and spilled the grains out in a short, thick line.

“For the sin of lust, I bid you to kneel.”

Anduin pushed himself into standing and made his way to the center of the room, where he knelt, picking up the hem of his robes so that his bare, bruised, and cut knee could rest in the pile of rice. His eyes widened at the pain as sharp granules dug into not-terribly old cuts. His metal one slid uselessly, crushing the other grains.

“I bid you to show your hands.”

Anduin complied, extending them so that they were about chest-high, his elbows raised near his ribs. He stared at the thin lines of scar tissue that ran across the skin of his fingers, in-between knuckles and over the back. He remembered Wrathion’s claws tracing them, as if the lines were that of a map and he was committing the patterns to memory. The skin was slightly swollen with faint traces of yellow bruising and red discoloration. His hands remained steady as the archbishop once again took his time perusing the closet, returning the scoop to the rice sack and taking out a slender wooden rod.

Without another word, the archbishop brought the tip of the switch swinging down on the back of Anduin’s hands. Anduin bit his tongue as his hands dipped from the force, leaving a stinging red streak on the skin. The switch came down again, this time across the knuckles, with enough of a pause between the next one for the pain to sink in. Anduin counted each point of contact, bracing against the urge to pull away or shake them out. At twenty, the archbishop motioned for him to turn them over. Anduin did, fingers twitching and shaking as he resisted the impulse to curl them protectively over his palms. Arthur raised the switch again and laid a smacking blow directly across. He hit the same spot nineteen more times, until there was a long, raised red and white welt through the center of each.

In the absence of the ringing noise each strike had made, the air was instead filled with the sound of Anduin’s strained breathing through his nostrils, mouth tightly shut to stop himself from hissing in pain. The archbishop returned the switch to the closet and made his way over to the bookshelf, tugging free two hardcover bibles bearing the standard scripture of the Church of the Holy Light. Anduin knew the contents of their pages more or less by heart. The archbishop carried the bibles over to where Anduin knelt and placed one in each shaking hand. Anduin braced his arms against the weight, pressing against his stinging skin and aching, swollen fingers.

“You may now recite your penance.”

Anduin began to pray, out loud, his well-practiced voice calm and steady, like the many times he had recited scripture during mass or given a speech before a crowd. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Archbishop Arthur make his way back to the confessional chair, where he eased himself down, folding his hands in his lap as he observed. Anduin worked his way through the list of prayers, one by one. He tried not to think of Wrathion standing before him, what he would think if he were to see the scene. He pushed against the thought of how disgusted Wrathion would be at the sight of the High King of the Alliance brought to his knees, willingly submitting to this.

When he was finished, the archbishop walked over again, raising one hand in blessing. The tips of his fingers illuminated with the Light, but it was far from Anduin’s reach.

“Light, bringer of mercies, through the death and resurrection of the naaru who have reconciled the world to themselves and sent the energy of thine power among us for the forgiveness of sins, punishment of evil, and mending of wounds; through the ministry of the Church may the Light give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Light.”

The archbishop took the bibles from Anduin’s hands. The king slowly lowered them, pain throbbing up his wrists and arms. He pushed himself into a standing position, the ache mirrored in his knee. Grains of rice stuck to his skin as he stood up. He brushed them off with shaking fingers. While the archbishop returned the bibles to the bookcase, the king swept up every grain of rice off the floor, depositing them into a waste bin. 

The archbishop was waiting for him when he finished, taking each of the king’s hands in turn and studying them. He nodded in satisfaction, clasping them between his. Anduin tried not to groan as he felt the healing energy of the Light seep into him, mending the worst of the tears in the skin and cracks in the bone, leaving just enough bruises and welts to remind him that it had happened.

“Well done, my son,” the archbishop praised when he was through. “By the Light’s will, may this absolution carry you through in a state of grace until we meet again tomorrow.”

* * *

The Lion’s Seat had been restored to its original state: the Gilnean banners taken down and replaced with the standard Alliance gold and blue lions. Anduin fiddled with his coat buttons, head ducked as he strode up the carpet to the great stone throne, faltering every third step. The gold lions stared impassively as always at his approach and he let his knuckles brush against the nose of the one who lay on the right-hand side. He took a seat on the soft blue velvet blankets and cushions that padded the plain stone throne, adjusting so that his hip wasn’t resting directly on a stiff surface. The sun warmed his shoulders through the fogged stained glass behind him.

There were a significant number of petitioners waiting to be heard and Anduin knew that he would be sitting for hours to get through them all. He would have to do so in front of his usual audience of guards and whichever of his advisors chose to be present. Now, a high ranking priest also stood off to the side near the desks where the scribes took their notes, fingers running across a string of rosary beads as his eyes remained fixed on the king. His role was to report back to the archbishop on the proceedings of the day.

The first to come forth was a family of three, two bedraggled parents carrying a half-asleep toddler, the wife having some difficulty walking under her very pregnant stomach. They had spent the night sleeping on the streets in the Dwarven district in order to be the first in line. They wanted an extension on the loan they owed for their farm in Elwynn, which Anduin granted, doubling the length of time they asked for and absolving them of the interest they owed to the Stormwind treasury. He instructed them to visit the Keep infirmary to have the wife checked over before they headed home. The next petitioner was a noblewoman who brought forth a request for divorce, which Anduin also granted, mentally ticking off another sin to list during confession the next morning. The third was a dispute between two shopkeepers, one accusing the other of encroaching on her business. Anduin listened under furrowed brows, calmly asking questions, providing gentle suggestions, and after a bit of mediation, negotiated a compromise between the two for alternating days of sales.

After some time, Anduin noticed Count Ridgewell standing in the shadow of the hall, flanked by four other men whose faces were obscured but judging by their clothing came from similarly high-ranking noble houses. His heart began to beat loudly in his chest. Anduin straightened his posture while pretending to adjust his coattails and the pillows behind him, folding his hands in his lap as he listened to the sound of heavy leather boots clicking on the carpet, thick buckles clinking, rich fabric cloaks rustling.

“Count Ridgewell,” the king greeted each noble in turn with a gracious nod. “Lord Wishock. Lord Vanyst. Lord Lescovar. Lord Berrybuck.”

The five nobles knelt before the throne, bowing respectfully, before rising to their feet. Anduin stared back into Ridgewell’s stern brown eyes, trying not to think of the last time he had seen them.

“Your Majesty,” Count Ridgewell greeted, no trace of malice or disrespect in his countenance. “It is an honor to stand before you and see you in such good health.”

Anduin laced his fingers, careful not to press his sore palms together. “Please state your business before the crown.”

His response was uncharacteristically short and curt, he knew. The atmosphere in the room had changed; even the guards seemed to be watching him with rapt attention. A small, taunting smirk twitched at the corner of Lord Vanyst’s long mouth, or perhaps it had just been a shadow cast by the domed ceiling. Then, Count Ridgewell gave a genuine smile, spreading his arms, the flowing sleeves of his lace-trimmed blouse catching the sunlight filtering in from the hallway.

“Please, Your Majesty, do try to relax; we will not be staging another arrest today.” His last word drew a chuckle from the other nobles, and one or two of the guards standing about the perimeter of the room. Anduin clenched his jaw. “Our request should be one of the easier pleas that lands upon your ears this hour.”

Ridgewell opened his coat and slipped an envelope from the inside pocket. He held it aloft, displaying the thin folded parchment to the room, and presented it to the guard who stood at Anduin’s left hand side. The guard examined it, running a gauntleted hand over the surface to check for volatile enchantments. As she worked, Count Ridgewell continued his speech:

“We come to you now as we did at the beginning of summer, and the spring before that, and the winter before that,” the Count explained, hand drumming across the hilt of his rapier slung in its low holster across his hip. “Spurned by endless begging from the mouths of our nagging wives and daughters.”

The soldier then turned to present the missive formally to the king as another wave of chuckles resounded through the room. Anduin felt a flush rise to his cheeks as he took the envelope, willing his hands to remain steady as he ran his thumb under the lip and broke the golden wax seal. He took out the letter and pretended to read, maintaining his best indifferent expression, the fine script swimming before his eyes as Ridgewell’s voice continued to echo around the walls.

“With the kingdom about to enter its second year of peacetime, I speak for the entire House of Nobles when I say that Stormwind is overdue for some celebration.” Ridgewell swept his arm across the room, as if he were petitioning not just the king, but his guards, scribes, and servants as well. “What good is an armistice if it cannot signal the return to normalcy, such as seasonal festivities? The last recorded event outside of the normal calendar holidays was the feast to celebrate the end of the Fourth War.”

Anduin tasted blood as his teeth broke through a welt on the side of his tongue.

“Every noble father in Stormwind would like nothing more than to formally debut his daughter in a grand, social setting. I am certain His Majesty would agree that the most joyous celebration of all would be that of a royal wedding.”

Anduin knew his pale face was most certainly red, but he pretended as if no one could see the heat creeping its way up his ears. 

“I accept your petition,” he heard himself say, his voice just as calm as it had been for any who had stood before him that day. “I would like to formally invite the House of Nobles and their families to enjoy an evening of song, dance, and food within the walls of Stormwind Keep before the first leaves begin to turn.”

Count Ridgewell smiled and raised his hands. He slapped the fingers of one hand against the palm of the other, again and again, increasing in frequency. The nobles behind him joined in, rousing an applause that was awkwardly picked up by the scribes and advisors in the room. The priest standing off to the side remained unmoving, fingers still picking their way across the ring of beads.

“Very good, Your Majesty,” Count Ridgewell said, inclining his head. “When do you expect the date will be set?”

“You shall have a date first thing tomorrow morning,” Anduin promised. “I will speak to my staff this afternoon and send a herald out when the sun rises.”

The relief the king felt at the sight of the nobles turning their backs to him and making their way from the room was palpable. He almost didn’t notice the servant standing by the Lion’s right side, until she had cleared her throat three times.

“Forgive me, Anna,” Anduin said, an excuse failing on his tongue. “I was distracted.”

“Oh, that’s quite alright.” Anna had already thrust a large glass in his direction. “You’ve been sitting here for hours, Your Majesty. Would you like some water?”

Anduin drained it in a series of swift gulps. Anna refilled it from the jug she carried without being asked, and waited for him to finish, her dark brows pressed towards each other with concern.

“Thank you, very much,” Anduin tried to smile as he passed back the empty glass.

The smile the servant returned was far better than the weary one he offered, and she dipped a quick curtsy before existing swiftly out the side door. When Anduin turned his attention back to the floor, the next petitioner was escorted in.

A strange tingle ran up Anduin’s spine at the sight of the old woman, hunched over a sturdy, thick cane, the wood so dark it almost looked black. She had a floral kerchief tied around her head, almost completely obscuring her hair, pulled back into a tight bun. Gray-blonde frizzy wisps framed her wrinkled face, tanned from working in the sun. Her thin shoulders, adorned with a fine lace shawl, were hunched from a significant lump in her back, forcing her to lean forward as she walked. A pair of thick glasses sat perched on the end of her small, crinkled nose, magnifying her scrunched, sky blue eyes.

“Dame Tabitha Ellerian, head of House Ellerian, approaches the Lion’s Seat,” the herald announced.

An electric jolt rushed up Anduin’s spine. He was grateful for the water, certain that his mouth would have completely dried out. Before he realized what he was doing, he was already on his feet, limping down the stairs from the raised platform.

“Please, would you bring a chair in?” He asked the nearest guard.

“Don’t trouble yourself, Your Majesty,” the woman rasped, waving one frail hand, layers of gold bangles and beaded bracelets rustling, as she beat the attendant off and began to limp forward. “I’ve been seated in a wagon for days. When you get to be my age, you have to stand every now and again or else you’ll forget how.”

The guard exchanged a tentative look with the king, who nodded in deferment. Anduin’s hands hung uselessly by his sides as he stood, awkwardly, between the old woman and the steps to the throne, reluctant to sit while she remained on her feet. She seemed in no hurry, rustling through her dress pockets as she approached.

“I am sorry I was not there to greet you in person,” Anduin said around his suddenly clumsy tongue. “I was not aware of your pending arrival.”

The old woman peered up at him with a grim expression. “I’m guessing you didn’t receive our letter, then?”

“Letter?” Anduin repeated. She nodded and he felt fresh heat rise to his ears. “No. I’m afraid I did not.”

The visitor sighed and continued to rummage around her dress pockets. At last, she withdrew a crinkled envelope. Anduin recognized his own handwriting on the front as she passed it into his hand.

“We responded immediately, of course,” the woman explained, bringing her leathered, ring-decorated hands to rest on the top of her cane. “But, it’s been months now. I decided one of us had to come out here and see what was going on for ourselves. I’m afraid there wasn’t much we could’ve done for you, though, at any rate. We haven’t had a presence in the House since...well...”

She paused and made the sign of the Light above her forehead, chest, and shoulders, muttering a brief prayer in a language Anduin did not understand.

“...It created a rift between our families,” she said. “You see. Your father’s and ours. We all tried to warn him that he needed to pay the Stonemasons. We heard the rumblings, loud and clear, from each and every one of our neighbors. There were people who’d started chewing on leather to stave off hunger while waiting for that coin.”

She shook her head as if she would shake the handkerchief right from her head, raising her cane and banging it down on the stone floor, the sound echoing high into the vaulted ceiling.

“It wasn’t right, working those young men and women to the bone the way they did to rebuild all of this,” she muttered, more light wisps falling free of the bun as she shook her head and gestured to the gold lions lounging around the throne. “And then they had the gall to send each and every one of them home empty-handed. What did they _think_ would happen?”

She at last settled and cleared her throat, bringing a handkerchief to her mouth so that she could cough.

“It was a tragedy,” Anduin said, his voice dry and steady. He felt lightheaded, as if he were in a dream.

“It was avoidable,” the old woman retorted, curtly, not bothering to hide the contempt in her voice. “After Tiffin died, we all left the court. We abandoned you. It was mostly my decision. I figured we wouldn’t have much of a finger in your upbringing at any rate, not with Tiffin gone and that...Prestor woman so close to Varian’s breast. She wouldn't have let any of us backwater merchants near the crown prince. Then, near twenty years later…”

She shook her head, glaring at the piece of paper, still held in Anduin’s gloved hand.

“It just about did me in, seeing your name on paper like that. It felt like someone had walked over my grave.”

“I’m sorry,” Anduin apologized. “I didn’t mean to cause you undue stress.”

The old woman scoffed, flicking her thin, vein-crossed wrist again.

“I wasn’t looking for an apology, Your Majesty,” she noted with a respectful incline of her head. “I understood completely why you wrote to us like you did. I was more than happy to respond.”

Anduin swallowed the lump in his throat, bowing his head as well. “Please, there’s no need for formalities, or bowing. You are…”

He found he couldn’t bring himself to say the word.

“...Just Anduin, if you please. Are you sure that you wouldn’t like a chair…?”

“So you didn’t get our letter, eh?” the old woman cackled, squinting at him through one eye as if she hadn’t heard a word that just came out of his mouth.

“No,” Anduin said, thinking of the pile on his desk. He was certain he wouldn’t have missed one labeled _Ellerian_. “I’m sorry, I did not.”

To his surprise, the old woman continued to chuckle, shifting her weight on her cane.

“Ah, well, there you have it,” she replied, running one scabbed knuckle underneath her eye. “We figured as much, my dear. We hoped it would reach you, of course, and bring you some comfort, but we’re sadly all too familiar with how the nobility works around here, so we planned for this, just in case. It was your great aunt who suggested it, Light rest her soul. She passed only a month ago. I’m only sorry I won’t get to tell her in person.”

Anduin tilted his head to one side. “I’m afraid I don’t understand your meaning.”

“We put a hex on the letter,” the old woman explained, as if she were describing a technique to shoe a horse. “To curse anyone who prevented it from reaching your hands. It was the best way we could think of, you see, to let them know that you weren’t alone in this world and had someone keeping an eye on you.”

A small murmur rose from both the attendants in the throne room and the petitioners who waited in the immediate hall outside. Anduin felt as if there were a strange buzzing in his ear, some kind of aftershock from an explosion. His knee felt weak. He almost considered sinking down to the lowermost step of the Lion’s Seat. Then, he could hear a familiar, warm whisper, as if someone was leaning into his ear: _Ridiculous._

“Thank you, Dame Ellerian, I appreciate you taking the time to visit,” Anduin said, voice rising to that of a king’s tone once again. He stepped forward, reaching for her hand. “Would you like to join me for dinner? I would be more than glad to offer you lodgings in the Keep for the evening, to rest, after your long journey…”

“Oh, no, my dear,” the old woman brought the hand that held her cane close to clasp his in kind. They stood, palms stacked, exchanging stares with one another. “You have enough to worry about without looking after an old woman. I’d rather start making my way back home to my own bed. I only wanted you to know that we did get your letter, dearest. Your words didn’t fall on deaf ears.”

Anduin was at a loss. He only nodded, clasping the small hands briefly before letting go. He stood in the middle of the throne room, watching his great-grandmother slowly make her way back out through the grand doorway. A murmur from an attendant snapped him out of his daze. He turned on his heel, limped to the throne, and settled back in, beckoning for the guard to let in the next petitioner.

* * *

That night, Anduin lay on the couch in his parlor once again, staring at the ceiling as he held a hot water bottle to his hip. The familiar sound of his parlor doors opening drew his attention. When he took note of the visitor, he put the water bottle aside and began to push himself into a standing position.

“Shaw, welcome,” the king said. “Would you like…?”

“Please, Your Majesty, don’t trouble yourself,” the spymaster interrupted, a hand slipping out from under his cloak. “Rest. I will only be here for a moment.”

He looked more exhausted than Anduin had ever seen him. Though his green eyes were as sharp as ever, his face was very pale, every freckle visible on his bony cheeks. Anduin sat back down, to the relief of his twinging leg.

“I’m here to deliver a personal report,” Shaw said. “I’ve just returned from a journey to Redridge. I was part of a caravan that led Wrathion there. We released him at the border between Redridge and the Burning Steppes. I saw him fly off with my own eyes, alive and in as much good health as one who has spent a few weeks in the Stockades can be.”

It took Anduin a moment to digest this.

“A few weeks?” Anduin repeated, stunned.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Shaw answered, gently. “He was only apprehended very soon before the date of the trial.”

A wave of shock and relief rolled through Anduin as he realized that Wrathion hadn’t been languishing in the Stockades since the start of the coup. He felt a hot pressure build behind his eyes that he quickly blinked away.

“Thank you,” he managed to say. “I appreciate that you took the time to do that.”

“It was my duty,” Shaw dismissed. After a pause, he added: “I was glad to fulfill it.”

“...He didn’t have any parting words?” Anduin questioned despite himself.

“No, Your Majesty. He did not. His departure was swift.”

Anduin nodded, staring at his hands in his lap.

“Do you require anything else of me this evening?” Shaw asked.

“No.” Anduin’s head snapped up. “No, Shaw, thank you. You’ve done enough. Please...you should rest. Take the rest of the week off.”

“Thank you. I will consider it,” Shaw said, wryly, as he bowed and turned. “Have a good night, Your Majesty.”

When the doors closed, the threat of tears abated along with the anger, leaving Anduin numb. He stood up and limped to the table, where he uncorked the wine bottle and poured out a large portion. He drank as he paced up and down the length of the room, tapping one finger against the rim of the glass, his mind empty of all thoughts except for a strange vision of Wrathion soaring over a distant memory of seeing the Redridge mountain range as a child.

The king found himself in front of his bookcase, meticulously dust-free, the books organized by topic and then by author. His eyes ran over the titles, desperate for something to focus on, and landed on the label-less black leather spines of his mother’s journals. He tugged the first one free, examining the map of worn scratches on the plain, titleless cover.

He carefully set down the journal on the carpet in front of his bedroom’s fireplace, placing it next to the wine glass on the stone floor. He went into the bathroom, changed into his sleep clothes, and drank an entire potion, then returned to the bedroom and began to drag his pillows from his bed. He tossed them down into a large pile on the carpet, carried his crutches over, and let himself collapse next to the heap. On the floor, he unbuckled the clasp on his prosthesis to slip off the socket and roll down the sock. He massaged the limb until it no longer felt as stiff and curled up onto his side, sinking into the pillows, opening the journal to its first page.

_  
I suppose I am now one of those tedious nobles who thinks themselves important enough to keep a diary, presuming that one day, someone, somewhere will be struck with the notion to read every mundane thought that chanced to flit through my mind on the daily. I cannot imagine a more humiliating fate than that of the last traces of my remaining years on Azeroth being a record of my indigestion from rich city food and complaints about court gossip, so I shall try my best to make these entries worth the expense of the ink used to inscribe them._

_Light knows I have little else to do to keep myself occupied in this room. I desire to at least give the pretense of a valid reason for why I am spending my evenings sitting here at the High King’s desk, alone, accompanied by a single sagging candle, in the parlor of Stormwind Keep’s royal chambers instead of at his side in bed. I’ve abandoned any attempt to read his sparse collection of the driest of history and law books. I doubt that he has managed to read them even once over the span of his years from cover to cover. Their spines are far too crisp for tomes of their age, I expect they have endured many decades of neglect from Wrynn kings so I shall feel no guilt about continuing that tradition._

_I find Stormwind society to be, true to my family’s endless warnings, completely and utterly ridiculous. It’s no wonder this governing body has found itself so in want of coin that they were desperate enough to elevate a small merchant family from the armpit of Westfall into the ranks of its nobility for the single reason of receiving a bride’s dowry and generational access to her family’s meticulously accumulated wealth. The nobility spared no expense for the wedding, as if to compensate for the humiliation. I have never in my life endured such an obscenely lavish affair. My white lace dress alone could have paid to support several farms for multiple generations. I have carefully folded the thing in a trunk, tossing in some moth balls for good luck, so that if one day fate should curse me with a daughter she will have some chance of inheriting it and sparing Stormwind the expense. Although at the rate that Varian and I are going, I fear Stormwind will be in want of heirs for some time yet._

_We could not even consummate our wedding night properly, not for want of us trying. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved. Luckily, my cycle was in our favor and the sheets were plenty well stained with my blood by the time we admitted defeat, which Varian produced to the satisfaction of his voracious, drunken relatives waiting and making a ruckus in the hall. The High King even managed to man-handle a bottle of wine from someone before chasing them off, but he passed out before he could help me drink more than half a glass of it. He was sprawled on his face diagonally across the entire length of the mattress, making it impossible for me to crawl beneath the covers, so I took the bottle into the parlor to have my fill before dozing off on the couch. We haven’t tried again since then and seem to have reached a silent agreement not to speak of it while we adjust to marital confinement._

_I’m sure that the nobles were somewhat relieved to know that their heathen queen was a virgin on her wedding night. It’s true that I have never engaged in intercourse, though not for lack of opportunity. I had more interest in helping the elders stoke the field bonfires than participating in the Beltane rituals, but I fear that so far I have only met the barest minimum of what is expected from me as queen. I find myself hopelessly lost among the intricate weavings of Stormwind’s court. Though my family sent me off with the best of their fabrics, my outfits are woefully unequipped to pit me against the limitless finery of Stormwind’s noblewomen. My dress and hair were apparently so plain that I was mistaken for a servant, either by accident or on purpose, which caused the court much amusement before Varian arrived to correct the mixup. I am utterly unused to these proceedings and now find myself in the precarious position of having to absorb not just the practical skills that are required of a queen to rule but every single piece of social etiquette for fraternizing as one as well._

_I can hear my husband snoring, so it is safe for me to retire. I suppose I will rest content knowing that I put forth a reasonable effort in making use of Lady Berrybuck’s wedding gift. Perhaps the buck that died to give its skin to this journal’s leather cover is looking down on me with some measure of curiosity from the eternal fields of the Shadowlands, where I hope it is wandering...  
_

  
Anduin wondered if his mother would be mildly pleased or deeply insulted at the idea that her son was using her writing as a sleep aid, but the guilt wasn’t strong enough to prevent him from doing so. After a few pages, he found himself drifting off in a haze of medicine and wine, one hand pressed to her handwriting, the other curled against a pillow pressed to his chest.

* * *

The king stood with his palms pressed into the flat surface of the War Room table, trying to hide how he was easing the weight off his right leg. His blond bangs fell across his face as he bent over the map. The small figurines representing troops' movements were gone, now replaced by smaller blocks mapping farms and trade routes across both the Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor. A missive from the Horde Council sat at Anduin’s hand, outlining proposals for new dealings through the Stranglethorn peninsula, the mathematics of which the Alliance king was currently trying to figure out. At his elbow was an equally important missive, with instructions to call off the Gilnean and Stormwind ships from their assault on Kul Tiras. Jaina Proudmoore had somehow drawn Genn’s ire during the coup, but Anduin had only just found out days ago that the trade blockade on the island had not ceased.

“Your Majesty.”

Anduin looked up to find a herald standing before the table. Before he could open his mouth in greeting, his gaze was drawn to a strange pattern of lights dancing in the doorway. His eyes widened as he realized that he was looking at a dwarf, built entirely from white-blue crystal.

“Speaker Magni has arrived, Your Majesty,” the herald announced, noticing the shift in the king’s gaze.

“Thank you, Jasper,” Anduin said, limping around to the other side of the table.

He had not seen Magni Bronzebeard in quite some time and had forgotten the unworldly way that the dwarf moved: the fluidity in the stone limbs as the dwarf took a step, the eerie stillness to his chest and mouth as he no longer needed to draw breath, the subtle lines in the crystal as his familiar expressions shifted. The Speaker traveled in both a shadow and a pool of iridescent blue-white light, refractions from the candlelight and daylight through his translucent body on both the stone ground he stepped on and the walls that he walked past.

“Speaker Magni,” Anduin greeted the crystalline dwarf with a bow. “It is an honor to welcome you to Stormwind once again.”

“Ach, don’t be bowing to me, please,” Magni scoffed, stepping forward to extend one large hand. “We can get through this twice as fast without the formalities. I’ve just come from Orgrimmar and am not in the mood.”

“Is something wrong?” A ping of alarm tore through Anduin’s chest as he accepted the Speaker’s hand, shaking it. The bloodless fingers felt warm from absorbing the rays of the sun. 

“Oh no, I’m just here to deliver my reports. In person.”

“Your report?” Anduin repeated.

“Yes,” Magni reached into the dark, opaque pockets of his coat and pulled out an all-too-familiar roll of papers, sealed with a white-blue wax. The paper looked delicate sitting in his carved, crystal hand. “Now that my messenger is no longer…”

Magni’s eyes suddenly tore away from the king’s gaze. He awkwardly pretended to clear his throat of imaginary phlegm that his body could no longer generate. 

“I’ve got to handle it myself, you see, until I find someone else from camp who’s willing to make the journey.”

Anduin felt as if a hand had closed around his entire throat, choking him. He nodded, taking the offered roll and holding it close to his stomach.

“Let us speak, then,” he managed to say, quietly. “Would you prefer a more private place to confer?”

Magni shook his head, jeweled strands of hair swaying over his chest and shoulders.

“Oh no, lad,” he answered. “I’ll be quick, I don’t want to take up too much of your time. Not going to lie, mostly I’m here because I just wanted to see how you were doing with my own two eyes.”

“Ah.” Anduin gave a nod and forced a smile. “Thank you, Magni. As you can see, I’m quite fine.”

Magni grunted, looking Anduin up and down with his hard, glinting gaze.

“Right,” he conceded. “Well, first of all, you should know that we no longer have the help of the Black Dragonflight down in Silithus.”

The fingers tightened around Anduin’s throat. He found himself leaning with his back against the table for support, hands digging into the edge of the wood.

“They up and left,” Magni continued, gesturing with his hand as he spoke, trailing light as he paced over the carpet. “Both brothers just packed up and disappeared in the middle of the night. I only saw Wrathion for just a moment after he’d returned, before he took his brother into his tent. They spent the whole day arguing, not stopping even to take food. I figured I’d let them hash out whatever they had to in private and deal with them later. When I tried to go to their tent the next morning...well, they didn’t even bother to leave a note.”

Anduin nodded, a terrible weight pressing down on his shoulders. “You have no idea where they’ve gone?”

Magni shook his head. “No, I do not. Azeroth Herself doesn’t seem to want me to know, either. I tried searching for them, letting my mind wander through the lifeblood of the planet. Figured I’d have no trouble finding the new Earth-Warder; his power signature radiates something awful. But She’s blocking me, protecting him for some reason. I don’t know what they’re doing, only that we won’t get any help from them in Silithus anymore and Azeroth Herself seems just fine with that.”

Anduin studied the tips of his boots. “I’m sorry. I imagine this must be quite a blow to your plans.”

Magni sighed, managing something of a smile. “It’s disappointing, aye, but can’t say I blame them, considering what happened. I came to apologize for my part in this...or rather, my absence. News is hard to get down there. By the time I heard what had happened, it was already over.”

“There’s no need to apologize, Magni,” Anduin said quietly. “...there was nothing you could do. Or Azeroth Herself could do.”

He’d meant it to be a joke, but Magni solemnly returned his gaze.

“Well, you have my apology all the same. I’ll let you know if I do hear anything, though I’m sure when the Black Dragonflight is ready to be found, they’ll have no trouble spreading the news themselves.”

“I’m sure they will,” Anduin lied. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”

“Thank you, lad. I’ll figure something out, you’ve got enough worries on those shoulders. Just take care of yourself.” Magni’s translucent eyes flickered towards the armored guards in the room. “And watch yer back.”

Magni took his leave with one last shake of Anduin’s hand. The king watched as the last traces of dancing blue light disappeared from the stone floor. Almost as if he had been waiting for the dwarf’s departure, Genn took a step into the War Room from where he had been waiting in the shadow of the hall.

“Your Majesty,” the worgen greeted with a bow.

Anduin rubbed the bridge of his nose, fingers trembling. “Genn, good afternoon. What brings you here?”

Genn unfolded a piece of parchment, holding it up for the king to read. Anduin’s gray-blue eyes flickered as he took in the script.

“My signature, publicly announcing my support of the Westfall farming stimulus package, to present before the House of Nobles,” the older king explained.

A small, tired smile crossed Anduin’s face and he reached for the parchment. “That’s wonderful. Thank you very--”

Genn quickly snatched the paper away before Anduin’s gloved fingers could reach it. “I will believe that this ball is happening once I am there, myself, drinking the wine, listening to the music, and dancing with my wife alongside Your Majesty on the floor. I will submit this missive the very first thing the morning after my beliefs are confirmed.”

Anduin did his best not to curl his fingers into a fist. He nodded in affirmation before turning his back to the worgen, using the edge of the table to brace himself as he limped around to the other side. After a moment passed with the worgen standing still, examining the figures on the table, Anduin realized that Genn showed no sign of being ready to depart.

“...Is there something else?” the king probed.

“There is,” Genn replied, gray eyes glancing towards Anduin’s leg before it went out of his sight behind the strategy table. “A far lighter topic, fortunately. I wanted to invite you over for dinner with myself, Mia, and Tess.”

Anduin tried not to react as he lowered his gaze down to the table, studying the shadows his hands cast across the old map.

“We’ve spoken about your daughter...” he began, quietly.

Genn’s broad hand shot up and the king’s protests died on his tongue. “Before you decline, you should know that this invitation was initiated by Tess herself.”

Anduin’s chin jerked up, brows furrowing with suspicion. Judging by the look that Genn returned, he seemed utterly serious. The worgen’s mouth was set in a grim line as he brought his knuckles to rest atop the table, as if he were warily explaining his thoughts behind a fraught battle strategy.

“Trust me, Your Majesty, no one is more surprised by this recent development than myself.”

Anduin leaned into his palms. He felt the first traces of a sharp headache begin to probe at the inside of one temple.

“I will have to get permission from the archbishop,” Anduin noted, carefully. “Provided that he has no objections, I would be happy to accept.”

“Excellent,” Genn rapped his knuckles against the wood surface in celebration. “I will write to His Excellency myself this afternoon and send you a formal invitation.”

The king’s frown deepened. There was a chance that the archbishop would object to Tess’ company; it depended on how much stock or interest the Church showed in the nobility’s sinful gossip about her extracurricular activities. This was not a topic Anduin wished to discuss directly with Genn himself.

“Thank you, Genn, I look forward to it,” Anduin said, graciously, bowing slightly at the waist. “If you’ll excuse me, I have business to attend to elsewhere in the Keep.”

It was a half-truth. The king was not planning on journeying down to the mailroom until later in the afternoon, when things were winding down, but he was desperate to escape the confines of the War Room and Genn seemed to be settling in to take care of his own business with the council of War Advisors. It took twice as long as it should have, Anduin stopping to rest for a moment on the stairwell, resisting the urge to sit down on a step. His leg was throbbing; it was difficult to place weight on his hip. He managed, and soon found himself in the servant’s main wing, knocking on the wooden door to the room where mail from the postmaster was sorted and distributed to the mailboxes within the Keep.

“Good afternoon, Your Majesty!” A cheerful woman with long dark hair plaited in a thick braid that swung down to her waist greeted him as he stepped inside. She stood behind a table that was piled with stacks of letters and packages, next to two other women who also looked up from their sorting. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

“Hello, Cynthia,” Anduin said with a small smile as he shut the door behind him. “Alice, Marlowe.”

“Your Majesty.”

Cynthia’s expression changed when she noticed the king’s limp as he made his way forward. “Oh, Your Majesty, let me get a chair for you.”

“No, no,” Anduin replied quickly with a sweep of his hand. “Please don’t trouble yourself, I’ll only be here for a moment. I’m sorry it’s been some time since I was last able to check in and see how you were doing here.”

“Ah, nothing to worry about, Your Majesty,” Cynthia responded gently, tossing her thumb over her shoulder towards where a pair of azure, frost-encrusted runes glowed on the stone wall behind her. “Haven’t had much to complain about since we had the cooling enchantments set up, thank you kindly.”

“Oh, good,” Anduin said. “I’m glad those are making the summertime conditions more bearable.”

He leaned against the table, pressing his palms down so that he could ease some of the weight from his right leg.

“I came here because I am looking for a letter or two,” he began. “I understand my mail was being held for a period of time?”

Cynthia’s face darkened and she nodded, folding her hands over her hips. “Oh, yes. We had some nobleman’s son or other down here for months while that whole business was going on. Who was it, again, Alice?”

“Randy Wishock III,” Alice’s soft, lilting voice drifted from somewhere behind the piles of papers. “The one who likes to torture rabbits for sport.”

“Now, now, that’s just gossip,” Cynthia brushed the comment off, even as she nervously twisted an iron wedding band around her left-hand finger. “Well, at any rate, he never did learn our names, either, though he was here near every day for months making sure he got hold of all of your mail, Your Majesty.”

“I believe I’ve gotten most of it,” Anduin continued. “There was a stack that was delivered a week or so ago. But, I think there is something missing…”

Cynthia frowned. “I’m terribly sorry, Your Majesty, if it were still being withheld, we wouldn’t know about it. There certainly isn’t anything else here at the moment addressed to your desk.”

“There was another.”

Anduin and Cythia both turned to look at Marlowe, sorting through envelopes, who flushed at the sudden attention.

“There was another nobleman,” she continued, her voice quieter. “Begging your pardon. Before Young Lord Randy Wishcock.”

“That’s right.” Alice rose from her crouched position on the floor, half of her pale face obscured by a curtain of long, black hair. “Baron Paul Rodrick. He was only here a month or so. He liked to stalk after women who were trying to make their way home from the grocer’s.”

Alice and Marlowe both made a cross shaped symbol across their chests that Anduin copied. Cynthia clucked her tongue.

“Oh, I remember now.” Cynthia clasped a hand to her spotted, sweat-streaked forehead. “He fell terribly ill, Your Majesty.”

“Very ill,” Alice echoed.

Marlowe crossed herself once again, shaking her head and turning her back towards them. Her thick brown hair, piled into a bun on the crown of her head, trembled.

“Came in one day with these strange red spots all over his face and hands and his eyes were filling up with blood. Gave us quite a fright. We thought the mailroom had been contaminated by some kind of plague brought in from the northern region,” Cynthia explained with a shudder. “But, none of us here contracted it. Might’ve been some kind of summer cold: those can strike something fierce. I’m sure he got over whatever it was...”

“No,” Marlowe murmured, her back still turned as she resumed sorting. “He died. It was in the paper.”

Anduin felt a frigid chill wash over him, as if his entire body had been plunged in ice water.

“I see,” he managed, swallowing around his dry tongue. “How terrible.”

“Yes, it was,” Cynthia sighed. “I remember now. It was so sudden. A young, healthy nobleman like that, unfathomable to think of what kind of illness could strike him down. Perhaps His Majesty can contact his family to see if they know what might’ve happened to any letters that were entrusted in his care?”

Anduin said nothing, rubbing the pads of his sore, leather gloved fingertips over the wooden surface of the table as he contemplated the situation. “Thank you very much, for your information. I greatly appreciate it.”

“You’re more than welcome, Your Majesty. Any time. It always brightens the place a bit to see your kind face down here.”

Anduin felt a faint blush rise to his cheeks as he smiled through the uncertainty and confusion that tugged his chest. He released his grip on the table and turned to leave the mailroom, taking one step and then another. His hip buckled under a wave of pain, feeling as if the joint could bear no load at all. With his hands spread out, he managed to guide himself through the fall, metal leg sliding out as his burning left knee skidded across the stones.

“King Anduin!”

The floor seemed to pitch forward for a moment as Anduin tried to get up. Fresh pain surged from his right hip, prompting him to sink right back down again. The three women were kneeling around him, the hems of their simple, light summer skirts flaring and folding over each other. Cynthia had her wide, freckled hand supporting his upper arms, as if to prevent him from keeling over.

“Could one of you please summon Byron,” he heard himself say, staring up into Alice’s solemn, half-covered face. “If he isn’t terribly indisposed at the moment. I...I think I need someone to fetch my cane.”

* * *

Anduin closed his eyes as the carriage seat jostled beneath him, the wooden wheels bucking over a hole in the road. Once the turbulence had passed, his lids snapped open and his gaze flickered towards the window, draped mostly in a thick velvet curtain. He attempted to suss out a street name so that he could add it to the list of road repairs for the minister of architecture, but Brother Paxton’s prayers yanked his attention back into the stuffy confines of the cabin. The holy chaperone sat opposite to him, eyes closed, hands spread as he recited the familiar scripture, strands of his dark blond bangs falling over his cheekbones and face illuminated with the faint, white glow emanating from his palms. Anduin attempted to keep his mind focused on the words, while ensuring that the bouquet of two-dozen lush, red roses remained safe on the cushioned seat beside him.

The lanterns that lined the road leading up to the Greymane Estate cast a narrow, yellow streak across the carriage floor. Anduin’s curious eyes were drawn back towards the part in the window curtain, watching the ivy-adorned iron street lamps roll past. He didn’t often wander to this part of Stormwind. There were a number of abandoned estates from the fires that had been snatched up and rebuilt by Gilnean nobility immediately after the migration from Darnassus.

The carriage at last bucked and jostled to a stop. Brother Paxton finished his prayer, Anduin copying the motions as he signed himself across his chest and breast. The driver’s boots scuffed across the gravel as he made his way around to open the carriage door. The king gestured for the priest to exit first, giving him time to collect himself. His fingers slipped up and across his neck to ensure that the wraps of his cream white cravat were still pulled high over the scars on his neck. His hands traveled down the front of his dark, navy-blue jacket and he gave the bottom hem a quick tug. There hadn’t been enough time to tailor the form-fitting sleeves to accommodate the bulk of the manacle; he hadn’t realized it would be a problem until two hours ago when he’d put it on for the first time since he’d been shackled by the Church, so it sat thick and cumbersome at the end of his bunched right-hand sleeve. The runes caught stray candlelight along with the coat’s ornate golden buttons.

The driver held out his hand, which Anduin waved away as he carefully stepped down, toes then heels of his slender left boot scraping against the gravel, followed by the blunt end of his cane, and finally the other foot with a heavy, less-controlled fall. He limped alongside Brother Paxton and the Greymane’s servant who had come to lead them up the bush-lined path to the manor gate. Though the sun had already begun to set, yellow firelight spilled across the gravel and the lawn from the lampposts. The old hall loomed before them, outlined in harsh streaks of orange and yellow in the strange dark late summer sunset. A candle was lit and flickering in every tall rectangular window, like many ghostly eyes peering down on their approach.

Within the cool foyer, the King of Gilneas was waiting with a formal welcome, dressed in a lavish dining jacket over a blouse, both of an older, northern style and cut compared to Anduin’s. A near-identical cravat was tied around his neck, fastened with a small diamond pin to hold together the blouse’s collar beneath his freshly trimmed gray beard. Mia lingered at his elbow in a billowing forest-green gown, her short gray hair adorned with simple, thin woven silver pins that matched the embroidery on her dress. The candlelight cast shadows across the deep grooves lining her stern mouth, but her expression was otherwise cordial. At her throat, a string of pearls rested over the gown’s high collar; a heavy broach carved with the Greymane family crest pinned to the fabric at her breast. The foyer was adorned with fresh summer garlands and flowers, small tea lights lining the railings and small display tables. The air was perfumed with the scent of fresh orange peels and lemon.

“I see that you’re still using that old thing,” Genn made no attempt to temper the derision in his voice as he exchanged bows with the king. His eyes were on the wooden cane that Anduin gripped beneath his right hand.

“It looks sturdy and reliable, though. It’s no surprise that that is more important to His Majesty than fashion,” Anduin caught Mia’s surreptitious glance toward her husband as she stepped forward to curtsy. “That must be pandaren windsilk wrapped around the middle there, if I’m not mistaken?”

“Yes, it is,” Anduin acknowledged, adjusting his grip on the handle to briefly lift up the cane and set it back on the tiled floor.

“How unique,” Mia offered with a nod of approval, once again tipping her face towards Genn to send some kind of wordless communication.

The Gilnean king did not seem to notice. He had already turned to the priest and was exchanging a tentative handshake, blue eyes friendly but wary.

“I don’t believe we’ve had the privilege of meeting,” the old worgen said.

“Brother Paxton,” Mia introduced, beckoning him forward. “One of the good priests who hosts early morning mass and helps with the wounded patients at the Cathedral of Light. It’s an honor to host you this evening as well, Brother.”

Paxton smiled and bowed, kissing the back of Mia’s hand and exchanging a handshake with Genn. “The pleasure is mine, Your Majesties. Your help with maintaining our humble hospital has been invaluable.”

Mia laughed, her gravel-toned voice warm and pleasant in its own way. “Well, I wouldn’t go quite so far as to say that. I simply do the best that I can with the first aid kit until the priests come along to work the real miracles with the Light....”

Anduin stood awkwardly at the edge of the small social circle, reminding himself to hold the bouquet upright so that the rose stems would not slip out of the black, decorative paper cone the florist had wrapped them in. A shadow moving out of the corner of his eye drew his attention to the back of the long room. He realized with a start that Tess Greymane was watching them all as she silently crept forward from the far end of the foyer.

The young woman bore a striking resemblance to her father. She was in possession of both a strong, slender jaw and a handsome, hawkish nose. The main difference was that she carried herself with a quiet, unassuming air; her flat shoes barely made a sound on the same black and white marble stone tiles that shook beneath her father’s own fierce steps. Her long, brown hair hung in a plain cut past her bare shoulders almost down to her elbows; that night she had crimped it into gentle waves, half of it pinned back from her ears with a gold barrett. Her eyes were so dark they looked completely black in the dim evening candlelight. She wore no makeup and only the barest trimming of jewelry: a pair of pearl stud earrings and a sturdy ring stamped with the crest of Gilneas. Her ungroomed brows were set in a look of utter indifference, as if the King of Stormwind’s arrival at her parents' borrowed estate was a mere curiosity that she had happened to chance upon instead of a meticulously planned event.

When she stood a foot or so away from Anduin, the princess wordlessly dropped into a low, perfect curtsy, spreading the folds of her fine charcoal gown like a pair of gold-tipped wings. The king presented her with the bouquet, bowing to match the stateliness of her greeting.

“It is an honor to be in your presence this evening, Princess Greymane.”

Tess did not take the roses. Anduin stood still, waiting with his arm outstretched. He needed her to take the bouquet and cradle it graciously with the crook of one arm as she admired the blossoms. Then he could reach for whichever hand of hers was free and bring it to his mouth for a kiss in between a string of compliments to her beauty. 'Was something amiss?' He started to wonder, unable to hide his annoyance as he raised his brows at her. She was staring back at him with her own brows perfectly level across her dark, unreadable eyes. Had he somehow missed a step and offended her? Was this entire evening some kind of cruel joke at his expense, retribution for her father’s preemptive attempts to arrange their courtship?

“Thank you very much, Your Majesty, they are absolutely exquisite,” Tess said, finally. She reached away with the hand that should have been in his possession by that point, beckoning to one of the maids instead. “Miss Ambrosia? Would you please be so kind as to take these beautiful roses from His Majesty and find something suitable to place them in.”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

The maid quickly crossed the space and dipped a shallow curtsy before Anduin. He handed the bouquet over to her in bewilderment. A terse smile crossed Tess’ enigmatic face as she clasped her hands neatly at the front of her waist, twisting her fingers together as if she was playing with invisible rings. For the first time, Anduin noticed that her nails were short, unpainted, and chipped. The one on her left pointer finger was missing entirely, as if it had been torn off, leaving behind only a bruised black and yellow groove. He slowly reached out to the injured hand, as if to soothe a startled animal, praying to the Light that she would respond to his cue and just let him kiss something so that they could proceed with the evening.

“Well, shall we get on with it, then?” Tess asked, promptly turning around to face her parents, leaving Anduin’s gloved fingers to grasp at the open air near her retreating waist. “I’m sure His Majesty has just endured a tedious ride to reach this part of the city from the Keep and could do with a drink.”

Mia stepped forward, neatly taking Anduin’s unsure left hand and folding it securely through the crook of hers, giving his upper arm a strong, reassuring pat as she did so. “Come, Anduin, let me show you the renovations that we’ve done while we wait for the cooks to finish preparing the first course. I don’t believe you’ve seen this area of the estate since we took residency here...”

Mia brought the king down the hall and into the main parlor, swiftly depositing him on a sofa. Brother Paxton and Genn followed, not far behind. While Mia worked with a servant to pour and distribute tall glasses of wine, Tess made her way across the room, ignoring the drink and heading straight for the grand piano tucked into the corner by the now darkened windows. She did not seem to notice nor care for the eyes that were upon her as she took a seat at the cushioned bench, drawing her skirts back so that her feet could reach the pedals unencumbered. After a brief pause, her deft hands launched into playing a demure song from memory. Anduin instantly recognized the piece: it was one that almost every noble of Stormwind had in their rolodex of songs to show off their piano skill at parties, including himself. The notes were complex and not easy to execute, but the resulting melody was unobtrusive enough to not distract from other conversations in the room.

To Anduin’s relief, Mia took charge of directing the social circle, swapping tame, stilted stories with Brother Paxton about the Cathedral hospital and the sermons from that week. Anduin tried not to drink too quickly and did his best to drop a polite, noncommittal comment when prompted for his opinion, his sore palms growing sweaty in his gloves as he clung to both the glass and the handle of his cane resting surreptitiously between his legs. Genn showed no interest at all in contributing to the conversation, nor concern for how his silence would come across. Whenever Anduin’s eyes flicked upward, he found the older king standing with one hand in his pocket, the other cradling his mostly untouched glass, staring at his daughter while she continued to flawlessly execute piano note after note.

Genn found his tongue later at dinner, when they were all seated around the great wooden table in the Greymane’s dining hall, the walls lined with servants standing on guard. Brother Paxton delivered a blessing to the Light for the food they were about to eat. Anduin barely managed to finish drizzling honey over his first slice of pine nut bread when the Gilnean king cleared his throat.

“Rumor has it that King Anduin will be hosting a ball at the Keep towards the end of the season,” Genn said, cutting into the small golden roast bird on his plate, meeting Anduin’s startled gaze. “Though the formal invitations have yet to go out.”

“A ball, now, is it? Wonderful,” Mia supplied, one brow raised as she used the circular motion of her wrist to stir her white wine around in her aloft glass. “I must say, it’s been some time since we’ve seen such an event hosted by the Stormwind monarchy. There must be quite an occasion coming up, I’m presuming?”

Anduin lowered his bread without taking a bite and reached for his glass of water, sipping to wet his lips and throat before speaking.

“I’m afraid it’s for a somewhat selfish reason.” His voice cracked horribly despite the water, and he barely managed to twitch the corners of his mouth up in a crooked smile. He attempted to clear his throat before continuing. “To give the nobility a much overdue opportunity for leisure and entertainment while strengthening political alliances with the monarchy, of course. But, mostly I will be using it to reestablish my presence in Stormwind’s social society.”

“Our full-grown bachelor lion, on the prowl at last,” Genn commented, eyes sliding towards Brother Paxton, who had already begun to tear into juicy, white strips of his own roast chicken. “Good lad.”

“That’s...wonderful news.” Mia pursed her lips for a moment, sending a stern, skeptical glance towards the young king. “I take it you won’t be going the route of an arranged marriage, then?”

“I would prefer to avoid an arranged marriage if possible, yes,” Anduin replied, looking down from her unrelentingly pointed stare.

“An arranged marriage is sometimes the more straightforward option,” Brother Paxton commented abruptly around the pieces of chicken in his mouth. “It leaves less opportunity for a young man and women to succumb to the provocation and seduction that tend to run rampant in modern courtship.”

Mia and Genn exchanged glances. Anduin chose to spear a slice of glazed carrot and slide it into his mouth to excuse himself from any response.

“Courtship does work best if the two parties involved are responsible.” Mia smoothly reached across the table to briefly clasp her husband’s wrist. “Those were the days, weren’t they?”

“Tess should be in attendance, as well,” Genn commented as if he hadn’t heard his wife’s remark, his gray eyes shifting to where his daughter was stirring her own vegetables at her place by Anduin’s left-hand side. “She just recently reestablished herself amongst the Stormwind nobility as available for courtship.”

Anduin glanced to the side to find Tess in the middle of chewing, thoughtfully contemplating her plate. She remained silent. Anduin quickly turned back to his carrots, choosing to stay just as quiet.

“Oh, that’s a happy coincidence,” Brother Paxton said, tearing off a hunk of bread and dipping it in the meat juices pooling on the side of his plate. “Have the two of you ever considered courting each other?”

The priest seemed unaware of the strange tension that swept across the table like a thick fog. Anduin took another steady drink of wine, finishing off his glass. Almost immediately, a servant appeared by his arm as if she had stepped out of thin air with an uncorked bottle poised and ready to refill it.

“You honor me, Brother,” Tess remarked. “I don’t believe anyone has been so bold as to suggest such a thing to me before.”

Anduin felt a strong heat rise to his face, his body growing warm under his layers of fine cotton and silk as if a fire had been lit beneath his chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he was dismayed to find that Tess was now staring pointedly at her father, her knife scraping into her plate with a bit more ferocity than before.

“I must admit, I’m rather surprised to hear that I’m the first, Your Highness,” Brother Paxton, chucked, oblivious. “It doesn’t strike me as that far out of the ordinary, to consider such a match for a princess of Gilneas.”

“I’m afraid that even princesses from the hardiest of kingdoms are not immune to shyness,” Tess replied, her voice light. “I wouldn’t dream of being so bold as to proposition the High King myself. It is, after all, considered quite rude for a lady and her family to be the first to initiate such a conversation with one who is from a higher station.”

Genn started to chomp at the gristle between his teeth with great vigor.

“It isn’t unheard of for kings to be shy as well,” the worgen rumbled, as if one such king were not sitting right there in front of him. “And a missed opportunity is all but guaranteed for every chance that is not taken.”

“Sometimes the most successful hunters are those who are patient enough to wait for their prey to come to them,” Tess quipped back, knuckles white as she made another precise cut with her knife.

“A hungry hunter does not always have the luxury of waiting,” Genn said, his teeth gnashing through his next bite of meat with vigor. “Like nobles who have wasted time ensuring the continuation of their family line.”

Anduin felt as if he was rapidly losing purchase in the conversation and wanted nothing more in that moment than for the floor to open up and swallow both him and his chair. Brother Paxton did not seem to be paying much attention, He was indulging himself in drizzling spoonful after heaping spoonful of honey over his bread. The young king helplessly met Mia’s tense eyes across the table as she took another long drink of her own white wine.

“Haste has been the untimely downfall of both many a hunter and noble family line,” Tess stated, fork and knife continuing to cut even though she had long sliced through the targeted piece of chicken, taking slivers of bone with it. “As I’m sure I don’t have to tell anyone here--”

Mia raised her voice, nearly making Anduin jump out of his skin. “Shall we take dessert and brandy out on the patio, Genn? It would be a shame to waste this good weather before the leaves turn.”

Genn raised his napkin to his lips, slowly and carefully wiping crumbs and meat juice from his beard as he continued to trade stern looks with his daughter. “That’s an excellent idea.”

* * *

Anduin managed to slip away to the edge of the patio where he could brace one hand against the top of the balustrade while staring out over the dark gardens in the Greymane family’s vast backyard. The heat of the day had abated, and breathing in the cool, fresh air made standing there almost pleasant. Genn, Mia, and Brother Paxton settled in amongst the pillow-covered lounge sofas around a small tea table. One by one the servants glided across the stone floor, lighting the outdoor lamps as they brought out the requested brandy and small plates of creamy, caramel soaked flan.

“Might I have permission to take His Majesty out for a tour of the gardens?”

Anduin turned around to find Tess standing halfway between him and the small table, her back to him. Her hair was mostly resting over one shoulder and in the shadow, he could just make out the beginnings of a dark scar across her left shoulder blade, poking out from underneath the back of her dress.

“It struck me as being the perfect opportunity to practice overcoming our shared shyness,” Tess reasoned. “If Father approves and dear Brother Paxton considers me to be a suitable replacement chaperone for our king.”

Genn grunted and nodded, waving one hand in their direction as he accepted a glass of dark amber alcohol with the other. Brother Paxton smiled as he gazed fondly at Tess, eyes somewhat glazed from the impressive quantities of wine and food he had consumed over dinner. 

“His Majesty has been on rather good behavior as of late,” the priest drawled as he sank back, deep into the sofa. “I suppose I can allow it this once. Unless your gardens are suffering from an infestation of dragons, Your Highness, I don’t see why it would be a danger.”

Anduin felt his stomach roil, as if a cramp was starting to take hold, and he pushed down the alarming urge to be sick over the edge of the balustrade. He was grateful that the evening shade hid the shameful blush overtaking his face as he glared out into the dark while listening to Genn and Mia join the priest in sharing polite, restrained laughter. When the king mustered the courage to turn around, he found Tess approaching him, her face as impassive as ever.

“Thank you,” Tess said tersely over her shoulder. “This way, if it pleases you, Your Majesty.”

Anduin followed the princess across the patio, gripping the railing tightly as he made his way down the steps. He limped quickly to catch up with her, falling in step at her side as they began to make their way across the lawn.

“Offer your arm to me.”

Anduin turned. Tess’ own head looked over to mirror his movement and she gave him a wide, forged smile, lifting her hand to delicately cover her mouth while leaning back, as if she had just laughed at something clever he’d said.

“Offer me your arm, Your Majesty,” she repeated from behind her palm. “While they’re still watching.”

Anduin obediently raised the crook of his left elbow. Tess threaded her right hand through and hooked her fingers with those of her left, letting her hands rest on his forearm. As they walked together across the dark lawn, she barely put any weight onto him, easing his worry that he would be unable to both escort her and maintain a dignified gait with his cane on the grass. They soon left behind the long rectangles of yellow candlelight cast from the windows and porch of the Greymane Estate and entered into the expanse of dark, blue shadows near the approaching forestline.

“Head for that gap in the trees,” Tess murmured in the same low, calm tone of voice. “Underneath the trellis.”

Worry and doubt tugged at the back of Anduin’s mind, but he saw no reason not to continue following her instruction. He was admittedly all too eager to escape the watchful eyes enjoying brandy on the Greymane’s porch. As soon as they entered the long, wide embrace of the trees, Tess released his arm, hiked up her skirts and quickened her pace so that she remained a few steps ahead. Anduin quietly followed at his own uneven pace.

After they had been walking along the dirt path for some time, Tess sharply turned and stepped into the brush, tying her skirt up in a large knot around her waist so that she could use both hands to part the branches.

“Be careful where you step through here,” Tess said, without looking back. “Try to follow in my footsteps exactly.”

After a moment’s hesitation, checking left then right to make sure that they weren’t being followed, Anduin stepped into the brush after her. The terrain was uneven, filled with traces of rock and unearthed tree roots, but he managed at what seemed to be an acceptable pace for Tess. The young woman moved with a sureness and ease he would not have expected from someone on slippers and juggling a petticoat. Between her dark hair and dress and the way she walked in near total silence, Tess would have been impossible to pick out in the night if not for the brightness of the full moon slipping down through gaps in the boughs. Anduin, in contrast, clumsily lumbered through the brush, snapping just about every stray twig and branch he encountered, his boots kicking up both rocks and clumps of leaves.

At last they emerged into a small clearing at the shore of a wide lake. The tall trunks of wild willow trees rose around them, their thin, tangled branches completely enveloping the space, leaving just enough of a gap to give a decent view across the water. Someone had even dragged an old wooden bench out onto the grass. Anduin considered sitting down, but his wary eye was drawn to Tess’ dark silhouette, studying the waterline with one hand on her hip.

“This is one of my favorite spots to escape to when I’m visiting Stormwind,” she explained, drumming the fingers of her free hand across her chin. She looked as if she was resisting the urge to bite her nails. “No one ever comes out here.”

“Too adventurous of a walk for most of your neighbors, I expect,” Anduin offered, taking one or two unsteady steps closer.

“Yes, and we just traveled through a narrow path in a very large patch of poison oak.”

“Oh,” Anduin said. He glanced down at his boots and used the tip of his cane to nudge a stuck leaf from the toe.

“I’m sorry you had to endure that conversation at dinner,” Tess continued, pacing along the edge of the lakebed, her back mostly still turned to him.

“Did Genn put you up to this?”

Tess jerked her head to look at him for a brief moment over her shoulder. “The invitation? No, unfortunately that was, indeed, my own brilliant idea.”

She spat out her last few words in disdain, once again turning away completely and planting her hands on her hips as her pacing came to a pause. Anduin shifted his weight on and off his artificial foot, clenching his jaw as he looked down. He heard a soft noise, like Tess was taking a deep breath.

“I invited you here because I wanted to speak to you in private,” Tess said to the lake.

“Then please speak, Princess Greymane.” Anduin found himself too weary to make his voice any kinder than a weary, disgruntled train.

Tess did not say anything. She stood in silence for an uncomfortable period of time, then folded her arms and resumed pacing.

“You’re lucky to have such a lovely spot to escape to,” Anduin tried to offer in a more diplomatic tone. “Do you come here often? When you’re in Stormwind, that is?”

A glint of moonlight reflected off Tess’ hair as she nodded. 

“I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that tempers underneath my parent’s roof tend to run…” Tess groped with her fingers in the night air as she searched for a word. “...high. Things start out well enough when I first come back, when we’re all still on our best behavior, at least for a few weeks…”

She stopped to kneel at the edge of the lake. Her shoulders and elbows moved as if she were rummaging for something. Anduin heard the unmistakable splash of water rippling.

“This is a good place for me to stay while everyone cools off after the smaller fights. For the rest of it...you must know of Lady Lorna Crowley? She is a very dear friend. She likes to joke that one of the guest bedrooms at her uncle’s estate might as well have my name carved on the door.”

Tess rose to her feet. Anduin could see a smooth stone in her hand, slick and glinting with the reflected moonlight as she turned it over and over in her hand.

“I didn’t drag you out here to listen to my woes.” Her stance widened and with a surprisingly sharp swing of her arm and deft flick of her wrist, she sent the rock skipping far across the surface of the lake. “I dragged you out here to apologize.”

“For inviting me to dinner? Yes, I accept…”

“ _No_.” Tess snapped with enough force to match her father’s worst tone. “Not for inviting you to _dinner_.”

Anduin patiently waited through another long pause. Instead of answering, Tess knelt down again and occupied herself with fishing for a new stone in the shallow lakewater, as if she were alone. As he stood, being ignored, unable to find relief from the increasing pain streaking its way up and down his leg, Anduin felt an intense, black temper begin to rise in his chest.

“I am sorry that your father dragged you into my...courtship issues,” he spat back, clutching the handle of his cane tightly. “I truly am. I told him on multiple occasions that I was uncomfortable with his offer of your hand without your consent. He was well aware of that. Perhaps it would have been more prudent of me to apologize for that sooner--”

“I don’t care about what King Greymane did or did not offer you without my consent,” Tess shouted, her face pulled into a strange, taut expression of disbelief. “Do you really believe me to be so petty? Or oblivious to my own father’s character?”

Anduin rolled his eyes to mask a wince and started to limp towards the bench. Clearly they were going to be here for quite some time, and he did not want to spend what was left of his night nursing his throbbing leg, in too much pain to sleep.

“I do not have any right to speak about the merit of your character,” he heard himself hiss. “If you have some insult or injury to do to me, just get on with it.”

“How _dare_ you,” Tess spat. “I brought you out here to apologize, you arrogant prick.”

“Stop lying. You’ve done me no insult.” Anduin glared over his shoulder, through a part in his mussed bangs that had fallen from his ponytail into his face. “Yet.”

Tess’ angry glare found him, her pale face framed by the curtains of her dark hair. “...You look horrible.”

“Oh, do I?” Anduin whirled back around, stumbling as a fresh, sharp pain shot up his hip from the motion. He caught himself with his cane and glared as he began to stalk angrily back toward her, speaking harshly through clenched teeth. “I can’t _imagine_ why.”

For a moment, Tess bared her gritted teeth as she clenched her fists, unalarmed by his approach. “You ought to have _heard_ the way Genn has been going on about how much progress you’ve made. I’ve had to endure weeks of his tireless attempts to soften me to the idea of marriage to you, going on and on and _on_ about how you’ve ‘turned over a new leaf,’ that you were ‘an entirely new man.’”

Anduin thrust out his chin in defiance as she took a step closer to meet him, her black eyes wide with fury. 

“I couldn’t _believe_ it when I first saw you there in the foyer,” Tess raised her own chin in an attempt to match his considerable height. “He is absolutely _out of his mind_ if he thinks you are in _any way_ an improvement over the king I saw a year ago, when you were supposedly still sick with addiction to the enchantments of the Black Dragonflight.”

“Oh, I regret to inform you that your father wants nothing more than to see you chained to a man who he very well knows is _still_ sick, Your _Highness_ ,” Anduin spat, thrusting his manacled wrist in her face as he gave a mock bow. “He knows very well that he is condemning you to a loveless marriage. He does not _care_.”

Tess shoved his hand away with enough force to almost knock him sideways. “Yes, thank you, _Your Majesty_ for stating the obvious. I am _well_ aware. I’m sorry to inform you that he’s somewhat desperate to cure me of my own similar _issues_.”

All at once, Anduin felt the anger drain from him, as if the whisper of a naaru had chimed like a bell somewhere in the depths of his mind. The shock must have been apparent in his expression, for Tess’ eyes widened and he caught the briefest trace of fear before they hardened again and she stepped back, whipping around and chucking the rock in her hand. It sailed in a high arc well above the waterline before landing with a hefty splash somewhere towards the middle of the lake. A flock of sleeping geese quacked in a chorus of fear, splashing as they scrambled away, coming to rest again several meters in the distance.

Neither of them said anything for what felt like a very long time.

“I want to apologize for attacking you in the barn,” Tess said, at last. “I am so very sorry for my part in your troubles.”

Anduin shook his head in confusion, struggling to make sense of something. _Anything_. Then, the second realization Tess had unveiled sank into its full impact. He gripped tightly to the handle of his cane and locked his left knee as memories of the night of his arrest crashed back over him, Reverence’s screams ringing in his ear…

“I see,” he managed to say.

Tess bowed her head, the ripple in her hair almost indiscernible.

“...how long have you known. About yourself, that is.”

Tess’ entire upper body jerked as if she’d been struck. She recovered quickly, folding her arms in a smooth, protective gesture across her chest. Her pale hands gripped her upper arms.

“Since I met Lorna,” she declared, curtly. “We spent a great deal of time together, especially after your fa….the Burning Legion.”

Anduin nodded, mostly to himself. He knew without looking that her gaze was fixed not at him, but somewhere out over the horizon.

“And you?”

“...I first admitted it to myself when I was fifteen,” the king explained, staring down at his gloved hands folded over the handle of his cane, the pattern embroidered into the teal silk just visible in the moonlight. “But, in retrospect, I’ve known for much longer.”

“Do you really have nothing else to say?”

Anduin pinched the bridge of his nose. A headache was beginning to prick at the underside of his furrowed brow. “I’m still trying to understand how you even found yourself presented with the opportunity. To capture me, that is.”

“I’ve been acquaintances with Spymaster Shaw for the past seven years or so.” Tess tightened the fold of her arms over her chest as she resumed pacing back and forth. “When I first moved to Stormwind, my life was completely falling apart. He stuck his neck out for me in more ways than I deserved.”

“Shaw is very kind,” Anduin offered, his voice soft as he watched Tess’ pacing become increasingly frantic.

“He strongly disagreed with one or two of the choices I’ve made in recent years,” Tess continued, the jerk of her chin in a nod the only sign that she had even heard what the king had said. “I let my temper get the better of me and I said quite a few things to him that I regret. I still have contacts within SI:7 and this...opportunity presented itself. I thought if I could do this one thing, I could win back his trust.”

After a while, Anduin took a deep breath and asked: “Well, did it work?”

“Did it _work_?” Tess made a face, coming stock-still to stare at him like he had just uttered something obscene. “Anduin Wrynn, I struck you down in cold blood with a poisoned dart and handed you over to your own traitorous kingsguard on a silver platter, for a crime that I myself have committed multiple times over. What do you mean _did it work?_ ”

Anduin shrugged. Tess tore her gaze away and resumed pacing, staring out over the dark horizon and into the shadowy boughs of the trees surrounding them.

“I couldn’t even bring myself to attend your trial,” she said, bitterly, words spilling out with no filter now. “After all of that, I didn’t even have the courage to watch them drag you over the coals. I drank myself into a _state_ when I heard the church had you put in the pillory…”

“Tess, if you hadn’t done it, someone else would have,” Anduin interrupted, raising a gloved hand. “I was running around the Keep grounds, barefoot, in my under-clothes. I wouldn’t have gotten very far.”

“Are you not _listening_ to me?” Tess violently shook her head, stabbing herself in the chest with her own finger. “It is _my_ fault that you were under so much scrutiny in the first place. He is _my_ father, _my_ responsibility. If I were a son to him, if I hadn’t given him reason to give up on me when I started to run away, every shred of this attention would be on _me_ , not _you_. This malice, this punishment, it should be for _me_.”

Tess nearly howled her last few words. She had begun to stagger like a wild animal, stomping and slicing her hands through the air as if she desired nothing more than to strike something. Anduin remained silent and still, mouth pressed into a grim line as he watched.

“Do you not harbor a single shred of animosity towards me?” Tess demanded, shoulders swelling with the level of rage she seemed to be expecting, fingers curling into fists as she stepped forward, closing the distance between them.

Anduin sighed, letting his shoulders sag. “No, Tess, I for--”

“Don’t. You. _DARE._ ”

Anduin flinched, Tess ducked. They both looked around, listening in silence. Once assured that no one had heard her outburst, Tess drew in a shuddering breath, raising a finger, her eyes shining.

“Don’t you _dare_ forgive me,” she hissed, jabbing her finger into his chest. It hurt. Anduin didn’t move.

“You should hate me.” 

Tess’ own hand came slamming down on his shoulder. He let it roll back.

“You should _hit_ me.” 

A similar punch collided with his opposite shoulder.

“Tess…”

“Just defend yourself for once Light _DAMN YOU!_ ”

Tess shoved both of her hands into Anduin’s chest, sending him careening backwards. The base of his cane slipped and he lost his balance. Anduin hit the ground, hard, stars flashing before his eyes as an unbelievable jolt of pain ripped through his frame. The world came back into focus with the sight of Tess standing over him, breathing hard, chest heaving, as she glared, her fists clenched and teeth grinding.

“Tess, it’s alright,” Anduin said, softly, from down where he had fallen on the grass. “I understand the terrible strain of what you’re going through. I forgive you.”

Tess sank down to her knees, the folds of her skirt billowing around her. She clenched her hands in her lap, picking furiously at the cuticle of one short nail. She stared down at her knees, shuddering, but she was not crying. Anduin’s instinct was to reach out, to take her hand and stop her from tearing at the skin on her fingers, to call for the Light’s blessing to calm them both. The thought alone caused the shackle at his wrist to warm to an uncomfortable temperature. Anduin remained where he was, checking his prosthesis to make sure it hadn’t been damaged or twisted in the fall. 

After a few moments, Tess calmed down on her own accord. She angrily dug the heel of her palm across each eye before she stood up, mouth pursed into a deep frown. She extended a hand in a silent offer to help him stand up. 

“Are you hurt?”

Anduin waved it away and climbed to his own feet, finding stability on his cane again.

“I’ve survived far worse falls,” he quipped, dryly.

He made his way over to the wooden bench and settled down, trying not to wince. Tess was now reaching under her skirts. Anduin saw the dark leather of a thin holster strapped to her thigh. She withdrew a silver dagger, turning it between her hands, studying her reflection in the rough metal as she spoke.

“I thought I should offer you my hand in courtship,” Tess said, bitterly. “It’s the least I could do. A way to relieve yourself from their scrutiny, at least for a little while.”

“Why would I ask you to do that?” Anduin’s tone sharpened. “Don’t condemn yourself to that kind of arrangement because of some...imaginary debt that you think you owe me.”

Tess laughed, bitterly, shaking her head. “You flatter yourself, Your Majesty. It wouldn’t be just to your benefit. It would ease some social pressure from my own shoulders as well.”

“You are aware that my reputation is tainted,” Anduin pointed out. “If you were to announce a courtship with me, you know what would be in the back of everyone’s minds when they thought of you.”

“That is the least of my worries.” Tess’s brows furrowed as she shook her head and slapped the flat of the blade against her thigh, pacing. “I haven’t even read a word of those horrid things.”

She suddenly stopped, jabbing the tip of her dagger towards the king.

“Please do not take me for a sensitive virginal flower, Your Majesty,” she stated. “I can assure you that whatever is contained in those documents, it pales in comparison to any run-of-the-mill chatter from the lips of my honorable colleagues from the Hall of Shadows. It’s the _principle_ of the matter, you understand. I strongly object to the idea that anyone’s private business should be distributed and consumed by the public as if it were a two-copper paperback novel.”

Anduin reeled slightly from this sudden speech, grasping for something to say.

“...Thank you, Princess Greymane,” he managed. “...Forgive me, but, do you mean to say that you are working with The Uncrowned?”

Tess nodded, twirling the dagger absentmindedly between her fingers as she spoke. “That is why I’ve come back to Stormwind. Shaw approached the Hall recently, asking if someone would be willing to take a job keeping an eye on Genn Greymane for him. Naturally, I was the most logical choice. Of course, the only problem with that is it requires that my father and I both tolerate each other’s presence long enough for me to collect information.”

Anduin hesitated, before he risked asking, “Why is the Uncrowned interested in the King of Gilneas…?”

“That business is not for another king to know.” Tess interrupted, pointing the dagger at him once again. “I am telling you this only so that you understand exactly what you would be skirting near if you were to join me in marriage and where my current loyalties lie. But you understand a rogue’s need for secrecy, Your Majesty.”

“Of course,” Anduin conceded, letting the point drop. There was a chance if he angered Tess he might not make back through the poison oak with his throat still intact. “Regardless: considering my own reputation, it could only do further harm to yours to be associated with me.”

Tess sank down on the bench beside him, the hilt of her dagger clenched between both hands, the tip pointed inward towards her own abdomen. 

“It does not matter,” she said, one fingernail picking at the hem of the well-worn leather wrap around the hilt. “You are still the monarch of the great and powerful Kingdom of Stormwind. My father adores you. Our marriage would please my parents greatly. Not to mention it would unify and strengthen both our kingdoms.”

“Yes, I suppose it would,” Anduin conceded, staring at his hands.

“The Golden Lion and the Dark Wolf joined together in holy matrimony,” Tess’ voice dripped with bitterness. “It would evoke such romantic inspiration. Everyone in the kingdom is likely to lose their minds over it.”

“Yes, that as well.”

They sat together, in silence, for some time. The only sounds were that of the woods around them and the gentle waves lapping at the banks of the lake.

Tess rose to her feet. She hitched up the hem of her skirt, tucking the folds into the belt at her waist so that her legs were unencumbered. She took the dagger, glared down the length of her nose, and threw it, with a frightening amount of strength. It landed squarely in the trunk of the nearest tree, the sound of the vibrating metal swallowed by the leaves of the boughs around them. She marched over to the trunk, yanked the dagger out, marched back, and began to repeat the process.

After a while Anduin cleared his throat, adjusting his grip on his cane, bracing himself to stand.  
“Should we start heading back?”

Tess did not look away from aiming her dagger. “Do you want to go back?”

Anduin sighed, looking away, out over the surface of the lake. It seemed calm. Peaceful. Devoid of people.

“...Not really.”

“Then let’s stay a while longer.” With another powerful arc of her arm, Tess sent the dagger spinning through the air.

Anduin drummed his fingers across the cane’s handle as he watched Tess make the journey to retrieve the weapon. “Aren’t you concerned that if we spend too much time alone, unchaperoned, it will cause a scandal?”

“For me? Oh, it most certainly will.” Tess made an unsuccessful series of attempts to balance the tip of her dagger’s hilt on one finger. “Rumors of engaging in intercourse outside of marriage with the High King himself will provoke the greater wrath of Stormwind’s House of Nobles, perhaps even put the final nail in the ruined coffin of my reputation. As for you, Your Majesty, well, I couldn’t imagine behavior on your part that would do more to please both my father and the Church of Stormwind at this point in time. So I expect between the two of us everything will balance out.”

When the clouds moved out from over the moon, Anduin could see Tess was no longer scowling, the trace of something that was almost a tired smile on her face when she returned his glance. He put his cane to rest on the bench beside him and leaned into it, draping his arms over the back and letting his long legs stretch as he crossed his ankles over the grass. Tess tossed the dagger upwards and with a single smooth motion, deftly caught the handle, turned on her heel, and resumed her throwing practice.

* * *

Anduin gritted his teeth as he felt the wooden switch tear through the stinging skin on his bruised palms, suppressing a grunt of pain. After a moment, he realized nothing was happening and he tore his eyes away from the particular pattern of stitches on the archbishop’s gold-embroidered robe to risk a glance upward. Arthur was frowning. Anduin followed the line of the archbishop’s gaze and realized that there was thick blood oozing from the torn white and red skin in the center of his own palms. His fingers were bruised black and yellow. The middle finger of his right hand bent at a strange angle. 

It occurred to the king, at this point, that he should feel some kind of emotion when staring at his own mangled hands. He couldn’t muster enough energy through the sluggish cloud of pain. It seemed like all of this was happening to someone else, some other man who was kneeling, alone, in a room while the head of the Church of the Holy Light in Stormwind stood above him and broke his hands again for the fourth time so far that week.

“Recite your penance,” the archbishop ordered, lowering the switch and briskly turning around.

Anduin did as he was told, voice quiet but strong as he recited the prayers. He was used to speaking in front of a hostile audience, and it was easy to slip into the soothing rhythm of the familiar scripture. It was just as easy not to stare at the blood as he felt it creep across his skin and drip off the side of his wrists. The edges of his vision were white with fog. As he prayed to the Light in penance, the archbishop cleaned the switch, using a cloth to wipe off the smears of blood, and replaced it in the closet. 

When the king was through, the archbishop took his hands and began to pray. Anduin gasped as a warm, golden light enveloped his hands. He felt the bones shift back into place and watched as most of the proper color returned to his bruised fingers. The torn skin in the center sealed, leaving behind a faint red elongated welt.

“I hear you have begun to initiate a proper courtship,” Arthur said as he worked.

Anduin, mouth pursed, nodded twice. He stifled the twinge of despair he felt when he realized that Arthur had healed him as much as he was going to. The bleeding had stopped, but the tell-tale signs of the healed welt were still too pronounced to risk forgoing gloves and his knuckles still throbbed when he clenched his fingers too tightly.

“That’s a very good step, Anduin.” The archbishop cupped the king’s hands between both of his, shaking them slightly as he spoke, looking down with nothing but endearment. “It gladdens me greatly to hear that you have begun to correct your sinful tendencies.”

“Thank you, Father,” Anduin murmured, not quite meeting the archbishop’s eye.

“Just remember that women come with their own proclivities to resist.” The archbishop began to squeeze too tightly, his thumb slipping down to press into the barely-healed wound. “They bear a unique sin on their souls that has been the downfall of many a man.”

“Yes, Father.”

Sunday was intended to be a day of rest, but Anduin rushed back to the Keep to bathe and change, once again ignoring the breakfast Byron brought him, which was getting smaller and smaller by the day as the king ate less and less of it. He slipped on a pair of gloves and a simple blouse beneath a tan vest, donning a comfortable pair of breeches and the most comfortable pair of boots he owned, meant for riding. While drinking coffee, he sat at his desk and tore through some of the paperwork he had yet to catch up on. It was all bad news: more failing farms, more untreated diseases tearing through the northern lands threatening to come south, more reports of large gatherings of disheartened people happening in the nighttime across Elwynn, Westfall, and Redridge. He spent the rest of the morning sketching out tentative calculations to pass on to the treasury advisor first thing in the morning for how to divert more funds to the pastures and to spread out healers in the struggling districts.

Around noon, Anduin donned a simple brown cloak and made his way out to the stables, where he saddled Reverence in the simplest saddle and reins he could find. He tore down the city streets on horseback with his cane strapped to his side like a sword, ignoring the one or two shouts from onlookers who recognized him. It was a far quicker journey to the Greymane Estate with Reverence’s quick hooves deftly able to maneuver around holes in the unpatched areas of cobblestones and carriage congestion. Anduin gave a servant Reverance’s reins and with a last pat on the nose, watched his horse be led away to rest in the Greymane’s stables as he delayed making the arduous journey up the stairs for one moment longer.

Mia was waiting for him in the parlor, chatting with a young woman Anduin didn’t recognize. She had dark blonde hair pulled back into a loose, practical bun, wearing a simple, thin blue dress with a white ribbon tied high above her waist. She gave a deep curtsy when Anduin was brought into the room by a servant. The servant went over to the piano, lifting the bench from the keys as she took a seat. Mia was dressed in a comfortable, practical dress, sleeves rolled up above her elbows and gray hair pinned high on top of her head.

“Anduin, this is Delia Lovelace, the daughter of a close friend of mine,” Mia introduced.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Your Majesty.” The young woman curtsided, her voice perfectly polite, her smile just a fraction too short to reach her concerned eyes.

“Likewise,” Anduin returned with an equally perfect bow, his dignified voice befitting of a king. “Please, just Anduin is fine.”

“Delia is a very accomplished dancer,” Mia explained, gesturing as if introducing a prized showhorse. “I thought it would be best to pair you with a practice partner who shouldn’t step on your toes too much.”

Delia turned red and Anduin pointedly turned his gaze away. 

“Just leave your cane somewhere and come here, I promise I won’t keep you on your feet too long for the first session,” Mia instructed, pointing to the empty spot on the floor by Delia’s left side.

Anduin reluctantly uncurled his fingers from the handle of his cane, leaving it to rest against the side of the couch. He clenched his fists by his sides and took careful, shaking steps to the center of the room. Once there, he gave a slow, short bow and held out his palm the way he had been taught years ago. Delia slipped her small, bare hand into his large gloved one, bringing her other to rest gently on his shoulder. He clasped the small of her back and drew her closer, already feeling clammy.

He chanced a glance down at Delia’s face and wished he hadn’t. She looked as nervous and uncomfortable as he felt, her lower lip trembling, eyes aimed straight into the room above his shoulder. He tore his eyes away and concentrated on the wisps of blonde hair curling around the shell of her pink ear. He struggled to think of something charming that he should say to help ease her anxiety about bearing the burden of being the High King’s private dance partner, but he realized he was not in a charitable mood and remained silent.

Mia clapped twice, making them both flinch.

“Right. I understand it’s been quite a while, so let’s just do some simple exercise to see where you’re at,” she coached, her wrists settling in the air as if she were about to conduct an orchestra. “Beginning with the first few steps of the waltz. Ready? And…”

An hour later found Anduin seated on the floor, mopping sweat from his face with a handkerchief, rocking over his outstretched legs. Delia knelt awkwardly beside him, twisting her soft, pale fingers as she attempted to suss out the best way to handle the situation. Like the king, her fine clothes had a dark sweat stain under each armpit and a thin sheen of sweat also coated her red, freckled face, now haloed by the hair spilling out of the bun. She looked awkwardly between the king and Mia, who stood stock still with a strange expression on her face, biting her lip in an un-queenly gesture.

“Right,” Mia repeated. “Delia, dear, thank you so much. That will be quiet enough for today.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty.” Delia sprang to her feet and proceeded to sink into two quick curtsies. “Thank you, King Anduin, it was a pleasure.”

“Likewise,” Anduin said into his palm, currently covering his face. “A pleasure.”

“Say hello to your mother for me,” Mia barked as Delia sprinted from the room. The Gilnean queen shook her head, pushing a strand of gray hair back into place. “Ambrosia? Would you please be so kind as to bring some tea.”

“Right away, Your Majesty.” The servant at the piano similarly was on her feet in a flash and departed from the parlor, leaving Anduin and Mia alone.

Anduin did not get up from the floor. He reached into his pocket and took out the potion he had been saving, taking a few gulps of the sharp, minty brew.

“You weren’t making any of it up, were you?” Mia asked as she watched him.

Anduin shook his head, corking the bottle and slipping it back in his pocket. “No.”

Mia continued to stare, gaze distant and unfocused. She seemed deep in thought as she pressed the tips of her nails into her chin. Anduin took the opportunity to get himself up on his feet. The potion was working quickly to course through his body and numb the pain in his legs and hips. His hands were shaking worse than ever, though, and only shoving them deep in his breeches’ front pockets stifled the tremors. If he thought too hard about them, he could still feel the sting of the switch from that morning.

“Please, Anduin, take a seat,” Mia ordered suddenly, as if some spell had been broken. She came up to him and touched his arm, gesturing towards the couch.

Anduin did not need to be told twice and he quickly crossed the room to sink down into the cushions. After a moment, he lifted his right foot to rest on the ottoman, then his left, leaning back to stretch out as much as he could. The relief he felt in his spine was enough to make him utter a silent prayer of relief in his mind. Mia tentatively sat down in an armchair close to where he was seated, twisting her wedding band as she stared out the window.

After a moment, Ambrosia returned, carrying a large tray. She set down the kettle and poured two fresh cups of earl grey tea, leaving them to cool as she arranged a small dish of honey, sugar, and cream alongside a fresh tray of sugar-dusted lemon madeleines.

“Will that be all, Your Majesty?” Ambrosia asked.

“Yes, thank you,” Mia said as she leaned forward to stir honey into her cup. “Please make sure that we aren’t disturbed.”

“Yes, Mum.”

Anduin sat in silence, staring at the smoke wafting from his own cup as he ran his fingers across his right thigh.

“I don’t understand,” Mia said, finally. “I’ve seen you walking in armor and heard tales of you taking down orcs four times your size with your father’s sword. How is it that you can do that but not this?”

“I have a special prosthesis for battle,” Anduin explained, running his fingers in circles. “It’s very loud and heavy and it reeks of oil. The movements themselves are different. Fighting doesn’t need to be so...controlled, it’s easier to fudge things.”

Anduin hesitated, then held up his wrist. Mia’s face flushed at the sight of the heavy black iron clinging to his red, irritated skin.

“And I was once able to patch heal myself if the strain became too great,” Anduin said, his own blush rising to match the intensity of Mia’s as he lowered his arm and tugged the sleeve back over the restraint.

Mia’s spoon clinked against the inner porcelain as she stirred her tea, deep in thought, brow furrowing above a twitching eye like she was fighting off a headache.

“Why don’t we just sit here for the remainder of the time,” she offered, finally, giving Anduin a pointed glance. “My husband doesn’t need to know. I will tell him that we completed the lesson.”

Anduin’s shoulders sagged with relief. As Mia resumed staring off into the distance, she looked troubled and drank her tea in slow, methodical sips. It was almost as if she’d forgotten that the High King, or anyone else for that matter, was sitting with her in the parlor. Anduin enjoyed both the silence and the warmth as he held the cup between his sore palms and let the heat seep in through the gloves.

The sound of the parlor’s double doors banging open made them both jump. Mia sloshed her now lukewarm tea onto her saucer and Anduin swung both his legs down to hit the floor with a loud _thud_. Tess strode into the room, one hand raised in greeting. She was dressed in a set of supple hunting leathers, face red and smudged with dirt and grit, dark hair pulled back into a tight braid, a bow strung over her shoulder. The other hand clutched three dead rabbits, their long, blood-matted bodies dangling by a piece of thick twine tied around their long feet.

“Oh, _Tess_ ,” Mia shouted, pressing her fingertips into her furrowed brow.

“Mother,” Tess shot back curtly, narrowing her own heavy brows. “Surely you’ve seen a dead animal or two before?”

“No, no, no, it’s not that,” Mia waved her hand, continuing to rub her forehead. “You gave me a _fright_ , I thought you were your father.”

Tess’ face immediately softened and she shut her mouth into a tight line as she crossed the floor. When she arrived behind the couch Mia was lounging on, she leaned over the back to snatch up a spongy madeline between her dirt-encrusted fingers. She popped the entire thing into her mouth and chewed, exchanging nods of greeting with Anduin. 

“Did you have a pleasant time with Lorna?” Mia asked.

“Oh yes.” Tess gave emphasis to the hand that gripped the rabbits. “As you can see, we were quite fruitful. And we spotted a number of interesting plants, as well. Lorna has been keeping herself occupied these days by making a record of new growth across the Crowley grounds. We think some of the kaldorei experiments have succeeded.”

“Very good.”

“I apologize for taking you both by surprise, I merely wanted to drop by and say hello to the king.” Tess met Anduin’s gaze with a small, tentative smile. “And perhaps bully him into staying for a bit.”

“Why don’t the two of you make yourselves scarce, then,” Mia said, taking another long drink of now lukewarm tea. “I have one or two things I need to figure out.”

Tess dropped the rabbits off with the cooks and took Anduin out through the path behind the gardens. When they reached the clearing by the lake, Anduin threw down his cane and loosened the buttons of his shirt collar and sleeve cuffs. He tore off his waistcoat, bunching the garment up between his hands and slid out across the grass to curl up on his side, using the vest as a thin pillow. He turned his back to Tess as she sank down beside him, kicking off her boots and unbuckling her shoulderpads. 

“Rough day, was it?” Tess asked, voice muffled. She was using her teeth to tug loose a stubborn strap on one gauntlet.

“I’d prefer if we didn’t talk about it,” Anduin muttered into the grass.

Tess unrolled something from her pack. Anduin heard the sound of whetstones scraping.

“Would you just like me to wake you up in a couple of hours, then?” she asked.

“Yes. Please.”

Anduin curled up, drawing his gloved hands protectively in towards his chest. As he inhaled the scent of the dry summer grass and the dirt and listened to the sound of lake water lapping against the shore, he could feel the tension from the day begin to drain, loosening his shoulders. Eventually he slid into a calm, restful doze, listening to the sound of Tess cleaning and sharpening her knives.

* * *

A heat wave spoiled the relief from what had promised to be an early autumn. Just about every window in the Keep had been thrown open in an attempt to draw in as much air as possible, servants hustling to and from the kitchens to keep the ice buckets in the dining hall filled. The weather did not stop Stormwind’s nobility for coming out in their finest. The first ball hosted in the Keep since the king’s coronation drew out an almost explosive amount of fine silks, cotton, jewelry, and corsages. The smell of hundreds of different varieties of perfume and cologne wafted through the stale air like a strange garden.

“Your Majesty.”

Anduin inclined his head and bowed for another countless time that evening, a trickle of sweat creeping from the edge of his hairline down the back of his neck into the collar of his new black tailored waistcoat. The taut piece of thin leather cord he had hidden beneath a black satin ribbon was doing its job to keep his long blond hair tied back into a low ponytail. Barely a wisp had fallen out of place, his bangs slicked back with a light hair grease. He extended his gloved hand to take the offered one, small, slender and nestled in a fine, elbow-length blue satin glove, bringing the back to his mouth for a brief kiss. His nose prickled at the scent of lavender oil that she had dabbed upon her wrist, but it didn’t completely mask the scent of her nervous sweat.

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lady Alice Wishcock,” he said, softly, releasing the hand as he rose to meet the glowing face of the young woman who stood before him. Her gown was entirely white with morning glories embroidered into the hem, the petals blue and the leaves and vines gold, her delicate square face, framed by brunette curls, and her green eyes mad her her an echo of her father, Lord Wishcock, who loomed behind her with his wife.

“The pleasure is all mine, sire,” Lady Alice replied with a genuine smile, a flush blooming across her cheeks.

“Are you enjoying yourself tonight?” he asked, his voice cordial. He tried to resist shifting his weight from the heel of one perfectly polished black boot to the other.

“Very much, Your Majesty.” Alice’s hands clasping at her ribbon-cinched waist. “It is truly a fine ball that you’ve thrown for us. I’ve never had the privilege of attending one so grand.”

Anduin’s strained lips twitched into something that he prayed was a smile and he dipped his chin in acknowledgement of the compliment.

“I am glad to hear it,” he said. “Please, do not hesitate to let me know if there is anything I can do to make your night more pleasant.”

He inclined his head again in farewell, feeling the heat rise to his face for not the first time that evening. Now was supposed to be around the point in this exchange when he asked the lady for a dance. It did not have to be straight away, in fact it was almost expected that a noblewoman who approached the king would need to wait her turn because of the sheer number of hands he would be taking that evening, but the invitation did not come. 

When Anduin dared to look up, after watching Lady Alice’s skirts bloom in a quick curtsy, he found her turned towards her parents, looking lost, the curve of her cheek bright red with embarrassment. His heart wretched down towards his stomach, like it had been doing all night. Alice Wishcock was only doing what was expected of her, for the same reason her parents and servants had gone to great lengths to dress her up like a lavish ornament, but despite her perfectly pinned hair, despite the frosting of carefully selected jewelry, despite her years of meticulously rehearsed manners, she had failed to secure the king’s arm for even a portion of the evening.

Ice cold fear coursed through Anduin’s veins at the sight of Lord Wishcock’s gaze, boring into him with an intensity similar to when he had been sitting in chains before him on the floor of the nobles' court. Anduin took a moment to remind himself that this time, he was within the walls of his own Keep, surrounded by people who expected a certain amount of civility from everyone present. Any fallout could be dealt with in subsequent days, not here on this night. The king cleared his throat.

“Please excuse me,” he said, staring back into the Wishcocks' stone-cold faces.

They bowed to each other, as was expected, and Anduin did not dare risk looking into their faces again before turning away to make his way towards the side of the small reception room, adjacent to the large dining hall from where orchestral music and clapping trickled in. Long tables had been arranged in front of the rows of tall open windows, curtains pulled back to let in as much of the night sky and air as they could. He was able to weave through the crowd without interruption, ears burning from what felt like dozens of eyes staring at the unmistakable shape of the king, adorned with his distinct blue and gold sash drawn across his chest.

“Your Majesty!”

Anduin paused, turning to face a group of five noblewomen who were assembled near the end of the table where he had tried to take refuge. His plan had been to snatch up a cup of potent espresso from the tiered serving tower and take it to one of the benches to rest his leg. The prosthesis socket was beginning to burn with each step as it chafed at his thigh and he hoped a brief respite would reset whatever nerves had been irritated. Now he was faced with five attentive faces, five pairs of glittering eyes set in well-makeuped, alcohol-softened faces, five pairs of hands waving fluttering lace fans. All staring at him. All smiling.

“Good evening,” he said with a slight half-bow.

“It’s a delight to see you looking so well, King Anduin,” one woman quipped. Something about her tone set his mind on edge, but he pushed the feeling aside to force a smile.

“Thank you, Lady Wisteria,” he returned, squaring his shoulders, looking at each of the young women in turn.

“Indeed,” another woman, slender and small, with a generous coating of freckles and long, copper red curls spoke up before another word could leave his mouth, exchanging a quick glance with the companion at her elbow as she continued to wave her fan with unrelenting force. “We were just admiring the beauty of Your Majesty’s hair.”

“Oh yes,” her taller companion chimed in on cue, her brown eyes narrow and focused, as if she were seeing right through his tightly-buttoned waistcoat. “We came to the unanimous conclusion that there isn’t a lady here who wouldn’t throw herself into the harbor for the opportunity to braid it.”

A faint wave of giggles erupted from smirking mouths hidden behind fans, drawing heat to Anduin’s face.

“Thank you,” the king heard himself say, as if from far away, as if directing a stranger who had graciously taken control of his body for the moment. “Forgive me, I did not intend to interrupt your conversation.”

“Ah, we were simply lamenting about the state of the young noblemen these days,” the fourth noblewoman chimed in, the black lace of her fan fluttering.

“Yes.” The copper-curled noblewoman made bold eye contact, her voice low, as if sharing a secret. “Perhaps Your Majesty would agree, it’s rather unfortunate how every halfway decent man in this city seems to be either taken or gay.”

Rowdy laughter erupted from the group of noblewomen, drawing stares from the throng outside their intimate circle. Anduin swayed, feeling his tongue swell in his mouth. Hot waves of shame and shock at her boldness rippled through him. The manacle at his wrist felt unbearably heavy and he tugged at the end of his wide sleeve to ensure that it was hidden as he turned away without bothering to properly excuse himself, shoulders drawing high towards his ears, bracing against the dying giggles that seemed to trail after him.

Anduin anchored himself before an ornate silver punch bowl a safe enough distance from anyone, filled with slices of fruit soaking in a pink wine and brandy mixture. He had intended to pour himself a glass, to appear busy with something, but he found himself transfixed with the ripples in the drink, his shoulders slumping with the first relief he had felt in hours. He let himself stare at his dark shadow in the bowl, letting clusters of bodies and their conversations move around him like river water around a boulder in a stream. He barely paid attention to a small form that sidled up beside him, silent on her flat shoes.

“I think I should very much like to slip a toxin into this drink,” Tess’ voice drifted from somewhere near his shoulder.

“Please let me know the moment you do,” Anduin responded without missing a beat, eyes still transfixed on the punch. “I’d like to be the first to drink it.”

Tess hummed, an attempt at a laugh, but there was little humor in her tone.

“I see you’re having quite the time at your own party.” She reached across the table to wrap her small hand around the opaque green neck of an entire bottle of red wine and yank it toward her. 

With a swish and flick, Tess suddenly had the sharp silver tip of a screw stabbed into the cork. Anduin hadn’t seen where she’d extracted the instrument from, it was as if she’d conjured it from thin air. Her slender, cream-colored gown did not have any pockets that he could see. A few deft twists extracted the cork with a moderate _pop_ and soon she was pouring him a wonderfully sized glass, shoving it into his gloved hand without ceremony.

“I’m surviving, well enough,” Anduin said, pausing to take a long, steady drink. “And you? Are you enjoying yourself, Princess Greymane?”

“I am perfectly miserable, Your Majesty, thank you,” Tess replied, over the brim of her own glass.

“Oh, good,” Anduin said, taking a second drink of his. “I’m very glad to hear it.”

He felt the ghost of a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.

“I made sure to invite only the worst people,” he continued.

“I can see that,” Tess quipped back, her gravely voice so low it couldn’t be heard by anyone else. She turned around so that her back was towards the table and her dark eyes were surveying the length of the floor. “I suspect that at any given time, there are no fewer than twenty simultaneous conversations either plotting your demise or how to coax you into someone’s daughter’s bed.”

She timed this comment to drop right after he’d taken a sip of wine. Anduin nearly choked into his cup, his face growing red as he snorted. Tess lifted her chin, pretending not to notice his slip in decorum as a benign smile curled across her mouth, for the benefit of anyone who happened to glance in their direction.

“Oh, well, then they should all be quite pleased when they discover that the post-dessert entertainment will be an auction for just such a privilege,” the king said before he could stop himself.

Tess had to duck her head and press her satin-gloved knuckles to her lips to keep herself from spitting out the wine in her mouth. Anduin’s shoulders shook as he struggled to contain his own laughter, threatening to bubble up from deep within his breast, blush darkening from his own crudeness. The tension that had been mounting in his frame for hours was unknotting, leaving him almost euphoric from the release.

“How shocking,” Tess’ voice wavered slightly behind the back of her hand as she struggled to regain her composure. “It’s a wonder how you ever tricked anyone in the priesthood into letting you within ten feet of their ranks, Your Majesty.”

Anduin opened his mouth to reply when a familiar silhouette caught his eye. The laughter died in the back of his throat. His jaw snapped shut and his spine went rigid. He thought he could sense Tess also stiffening beside him. They were descended upon from all sides, a cluster of nobles, men, women, of varying ages, like water into a broken dam.

“Your Majesty,” Genn greeted with a pointed stare.

“King Greymane,” Anduin lowered his gaze into a deferential nod.

“Tess.”

“Father.” 

Anduin straightened against his cane, lowering his wine glass. Tess had not moved an inch, leaning cooly against the table with her hand holding her drink aloft near her collarbone. Genn made no effort to hide his fond gaze as he blatantly stared at Tess, then at Anduin, then back again.

“An excellent evening, Your Majesty.” Anduin recognized the man at Genn’s left elbow, a noble from Gilneas. “I had begun to lose hope that Stormwind even remembered how to host a decent party, though it remains to be seen if our king remembers how to dance.”

Chuckles rose from the assembled group, Anduin forcing his lips to smile and part as if he too were laughing at his own ineptitude. Anduin scanned the assembled crowd, searching for Mia. He had greeted Genn once before, but had yet to see her that evening.

“I’ve been holding His Majesty captive with my boorish opinions on music,” Tess rushed to explain before the laughter had died down. “Unfortunately, I have been outing myself as a bit of a snob. It is my strict judgement that music should not be played unless one has good taste and can play it well.”

“Perhaps you should supply us with both, then,” Genn said, gesturing to the piano in the corner of the room.

Tess opened her mouth to respond, when the Gilnean noble chimed in once again. “Indeed, and perhaps Your Majesty could indulge us by accompanying her in song?”

“Oh, that would be delightful!” A Gilnean noblewoman was eager to add. “Rumor has it among the court that the young King of Stormwind has a beautiful singing voice, though no one has heard it in years.”

“Singing tends to distract me,” Tess interrupted, her brown eyes flickering up to Anduin’s face. “But perhaps Your Majesty would like to bargain for a duet with me at the piano bench?”

“Yes, of course.” Anduin felt heat rise to his face and a strange chill run through his limbs when he realized that Tess was offering a chance to gracefully escape the social circle. “It would be an honor to join you, Princess Greymane.”

“Go on, then,” Genn’s voice slid between them, drawing their gazes. “We will keep an eye on your wine.”

Anduin and Tess deposited their glasses on a small table meant for just such a purpose next to the group. Tess led the way to the piano, not so quickly as to seem like they were fleeing. Anduin let his cane rest against the side of the instrument and sank down onto the bench first, running his hand over his sore right thigh with a half-formed prayer to the Light on his lips out of habit. Tess lifted the wooden fallboard before sliding in beside him, sorting out the folds of her skirt. She tugged off her gloves, folding them over the bench between them.

While Tess flipped through the book of sheet music, Anduin raised his gloved hands and found the home row on his side of the board. He tried to steady his twitching fingers and not think about the bruises underneath the soft, fine leather.

“I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to play tonight,” he admitted, staring at the backs of his knuckles.

Tess pursed her lips as she adjusted the sheet music to sit equally between them. “Just pretend to move your hands and hit a key or two when you can. I’ll take care of the rest.”

Her small, narrow hands came to rest over her own center row, down the keyboard from his. He noted that the torn nail on her left pointer finger seemed to be growing back a bit. 

Anduin nodded in agreement. Tess tapped her foot and struck up the introduction, the melody loud and strong, hands deftly flying up and down the length of the key. Anduin did as she had suggested and kept his hands resting on the board, but out of her way, bouncing his left heel along to the beat and hitting the occasional key when it was appropriate. He was sure that if anyone were around to look too closely at them, they would immediately see their performance for what it really was, but no one did.

“I take it you won’t be singing,” Tess asked, her voice barely audible as she played.

Anduin shook his head. “I can’t say that I feel like it.”

Tess made a small, short humming noise in her throat. “I suppose the nobles will just have to settle for watching the bird sit in silence behind the bars of his gilded cage tonight.”

The king smiled a little. He hit another key and the note resonated with Tess’ chords.

“They’ll leave us alone while we’re sitting here, I expect,” Tess said, nodding towards where her father stood with his companions. “I’m sure it’s far more entertaining to watch from a distance and gossip about the fascinating conversation we are surely having.”

Anduin chanced a glance out of the corner of his eye. Genn’s blue stare, direct and seldom blinking, was unnerving. The king snapped his gaze back down at his hands.

“Should we talk, then, to keep up appearances?” Anduin asked.

“Whichever you prefer,” Tess briefly raised and lowered her shoulders. “We can just sit in silence.”

“Let’s do that, then.”

Tess continued to shoulder the burden of playing, shooting warning glances towards any other young nobles who seemed like they were interested in waiting their turn at the bench. After a while, though, Anduin found himself speaking.

“The Black Prince would enjoy this piece,” he said. The strange feeling of weightlessness was returning. “I think.”

“I never did meet him myself,” Tess replied after a moment’s pause. “But his agents always seem to cause something of a stir whenever they happen to grace the Hall of Shadows with their presence. He sounds like a dragon with excellent taste.”

Anduin felt a small smile cross his mouth as he hit another few keys.

“He has a talent for everything he chooses to put his mind to,” he admitted, keeping his voice low. “He simply needs the time and the mood to strike him. I have my strengths to match him in some pursuits, but I often felt like I was struggling to keep pace with him in others. I appreciate music and art well enough, but I don’t have the proclivity for it.”

He nodded towards the sheet music, ponytail brushing across the back of his jacket’s shoulders.

“Like this piece that you’ve chosen. It’s beautiful. I don’t know if I would have found my way to it on my own, though.”

“You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself: this one is from a Gilnean composer.” Tess allowed a small smirk in his direction. “It’s loud and hardy, but introspective and melancholic, emotions that are utterly lacking from your sweet, superficial southern melodies. One would think nothing bad ever happens on the summer-blessed shores of Stormwind.”

“No,” Anduin said softly. “Nothing bad ever happens, here, does it?”

Tess dug into the keys with a little more vigor. He was certain she was exaggerating the minor chords, for his benefit. He laughed quietly.

“My people take pride in their culture,” she continued, her notes sobering. “Despite everything, we still do everything in the Gilnean style: the way we dress, the way we speak, the way we choose to cut our meat at the dinner table. Even though it’s been decades since anyone has been able to safely walk down those streets, we are still Gilnean.”

“Do you miss it?” Anduin asked.

It was a while before Tess replied.

“...I miss the idea of it,” she murmured. “I miss my brother. I travel to the ruins, sometimes, when I find myself more lost in the memory of how the city used to be than with the reality of it now.”

Tess was no longer reading the sheet music, but Anduin suspected that it had been more for his benefit, or the benefit of their shared illusion, than hers. She was staring off past the keys beneath their hands, as if she could see through it, beyond some window that lay beneath.

“It’s...strange. Most of what I miss, it isn’t my own. There are shades of some real things, but I can no longer distinguish between what is a memory and what is a vision spun from the stories that the elders tell to keep the old city alive.”

She lifted her gaze up towards the ceiling, dark eyes reflecting the glint from the fire of the candelabra on top of the piano.

“Darnassus feels more like a lost home. I wept after the world tree burned, I mourned with the kaldorei. I don’t seem to cry for Gilneas anymore. Maybe at first, when I was younger, when we were first on the run, but not since.”

“Sometimes grief is delayed,” Anduin mused. “And it doesn’t always manifest in tears. I never managed to cry for my father. Or for Wra--”

His voice broke and he shut his jaw, clenching his teeth together and clearing his throat. Tess did not offer further threads for conversation and Anduin did not attempt to ask for them.

At last, even Tess’ pointed glares couldn’t drive away a young musician eager to show off his skills and they rose from the bench, making their way back to where the group of nobles were assembled. Anduin accepted his wine glass from Genn, who passed it to him. He found his stomach curling under the worgen’s cool, ice-blue glance, but he also felt grateful to have something to keep his hand occupied as he turned to face the group. 

“That was lovely,” one of the Gilnean nobles offered. “The two of you have such wonderful synergy together.”

“Here, here,” her partner rapped his ring against his glass as Anduin and Tess turned to look away from each other. “I dare say, you both make a handsome royal couple.”

“I couldn’t help but notice that both the king and princess have been notably missing from the ballroom floor tonight,” the noble to Genn’s right commented with a jovial smile. He was gesturing with the hand that held his wine glass to the door, where the assembly was stepping through the motions of an elaborate group waltz. “It’s very odd for young people to spend so much time drifting at the outskirts of a ball.”

Tess shrugged, tossing her head back as she lowered her eyelids with indifference. “Oh, but perpetual conversation and dancing can be so draining...”

“Draining!” The nobleman to Genn’s right laughed. “My word, Your Highness. There are men and women in that room who are twice your age who’ve spent most of the night sweeping each other on and off their feet!”

Anduin felt his heart begin to pound within his chest. His mind was beginning to spin, the pain in his right leg becoming unignorable. He tightened his grip on his cane, shifted his weight to his left foot, and said nothing.

“Yes, it is rather odd for a pair of young people to be so dour,” another noble said with a teasing smile, stirring his glass in the air close to his chest. “The two of you ought to pair up and enjoy a dance or two together.”

“It isn’t going to kill you,” Genn grunted, suddenly, his intense eye contact making the hair on Anduin’s neck stand up. Once again, he felt the unwanted memory of facing him on the floor of the noble’s court cloud his mind.

“Go on, the two of you. Dance.”

“Oh, don’t tease them,” another woman pretended to scold. “Having some fun runs the risk of making Princess Greymane actually smile for once.”

There was no other means of polite escape from the circle of nobles that surrounded them, like vultures eyeing a pair of ripe carcases. For one brief moment, Anduin saw his own raw terror in his gray-blue eyes reflected back at him in Tess’ dark brown ones, both of their faces frozen into perfect masks of propriety. Then, Tess’ eyes blackened.

With a dramatic sweep of her hand across her brow, the princess’ face slackened as she sent her eyes rolling up into the back of her head beneath dark, fluttering lashes. Anduin didn't have time to get his wits together to react as she tipped over in a perfect arc towards the floor. At the last second, she gave a quick, almost imperceptible flick of her wrist to empty the entire contents of her wine glass across the front of Anduin's white tunic beneath the open folds of his jacket. When she hit the floor, glass shattering, the folds of her ballgown billowing after her, almost everyone around her sprang into action. Anduin had never seen so many silk and lace fans whipped out of waistbands in such quick succession.

"It appears that my delicate daughter has fainted in this heat," Genn’s dry voice intoned, the sarcasm barely detectable amongst the sudden chatter. He was the lone individual in the immediate area who hadn't moved an inch. "How terrible. Let me fetch a servant."

The cluster of noblewomen who were still gathered around Anduin, pulling out handkerchiefs to try and mop up the mess, all took a giant step back from him as he spread out his dripping arms and accidentally causing a few stray red wine drops to splatter haphazardly from his sleeves. Tess remained as motionless as a doornail where she had fallen, forearm strategically across her mouth to hide her shallow breathing.

As Tess was carried away, slung between two frantic-looking doormen, Genn directed his murderously neutral gaze back towards the king, who was trying not to drip on the carpet.

"I suppose you'd better go clean up," Genn said.

"Yes," Anduin managed to keep a perfectly neutral face. "I suppose I should."

The king set his wine glass down on the banquet table and limped across the floor, making his way to the closest exit into the halls of the Keep. Dozens of eyes were upon him, but he felt immune to their scrutiny with the scarlet badge of wine emblazoned on the front of his shirt. As soon as he was covered in the shadow of the dark hallway that led to the tower stairs that would take him to his private chambers, he smiled to himself. A real one. The first one he had enjoyed in months.

* * *

_  
I spent many hours today putting the final touches on the new economic proposal to bring before the House of Nobles to redirect more funds towards supporting the budding crop of farmers’ unions in Westfall. It is imperative that the Stormwind nobility understand the long-reaching impact of having so many people away from their farms and homes, working day and night to rebuild a shining city that they will never get to fully enjoy, to say nothing of the food shortages. The Stonemasons gave us a preview of the new throne and it is utterly hideous. I grew queasy, not from morning sickness for once, but thinking about the cost of not one, not two, but four solid-gold lions. Varian has agreed to support me, though I doubt even he completely grasps the details in the equations I laid out, but perhaps with his weight I can stave off what I dread is an impending crisis. Unfortunately, I cannot, as my grandmother would say, call a spade a spade and actually use appropriate words such as ‘crisis’ in my speech or no one in this Light-forsaken court will take me seriously._

_We spend less time together in the evenings, but for some reason this has made the time that we do spend together much easier. Wherever Varian spends the majority of his nights, he seems to be sleeping better for it. He is far more cheerful at breakfast lately, as am I. I confess I enjoy having Stormwind’s royal bed entirely to myself. I can stay up reading or writing as late as I like and no one is there to complain or care if I bring food and wine into the sheets with me. When Varian does join me, we lie side by side in the dark, talking without touching. Sometimes he will rub my back to alleviate the new swelling pains I have been suffering from, and we ease each other about our worries for the kingdom._

_I try not to think too much about the baby growing inside me, or what it will mean for this routine as queen consort that I have only barely begun to adjust to. I think when I was a teenager, I secretly had hoped I would become like Aunt Vivian, unwed with graying hair down to her waist, and living in her own nice little one-room hut on the edge of the Ellerian estate, but never in want of company for all the help and care she gave with the other mothers in the neighborhood. I have several months to adjust to the idea, as Varian has already acclimated. He seems truly excited about the prospect of being a father. He is always searching for signs of the baby, asking to touch my stomach in an uncharacteristically shy way, though I continue to remind him that it will be some time before I begin to show...  
_

  
“...Anduin…?”

The king pushed himself up onto his elbow, raising his opposite arm in weak defense. His cheek felt slick, pressed flat against the journal pages he had fallen asleep on top of. He blinked dust and disorientation from his eyes to find Jaina Proudmoore crouched by his side, dressed in a dark tunic and pants with a navy blue traveling cloak around her shoulders, silver braid spilling out. Her blue eyes shone bright below her worry-knitted brows in the moonlight, one pale hand was pressed to his left leg. Behind her, Valeera Sanguinar stood, silently, dressed entirely in black, her distinct, tall elven ears curved high above her hooded face. Two eerie, fel-green eyes smoldered from the shadow cast across her face.

“Anduin,” Jaina repeated, her voice quavering with uncertainty. “What are you doing on the floor...?”

The king rose into a seated position, startled, as if he were looking at a pair of ghosts. Jaina threw her arms around him, pulling him into a fierce hug that squeezed the air right out of his lungs. He slid his hands up her back, burying his face into the side of her neck, inhaling the familiar scent of Kul Tiras’ briney salt air.

“Auntie,” Anduin whispered into her shoulder, tightening his arms around her.

Jaina pulled back, cupping his jaw in her hands as she stroked the contours of his face. Her hard blue eyes were now brimming with tears.

“What have they _done_ to you?” she demanded, her voice cracking as she furiously smoothed back his hair. “You look _gaunt_.”

“I’m alright, Jaina,” Anduin said, softly, forcing a smile. “Really. I’m more worried about you.”

Jaina blinked furiously, rubbing her wrist into her eyes. “Don’t be _absurd_. Worried about me, what could the remnants of _Stormwind’s minute navy_ possibly do to the shores of _Kul Tiras_? They’ve been circling the island like small yapping dogs; they barely have the courage to toss out a cannon or two every now and then.”

Anduin slouched, hands falling into his lap.

“I’m so sorry, Jaina,” he said, tiredly. “I’ve been calling them back for weeks. I don’t know _who_ is defying my orders.”

Jaina grasped both of his hands, picking them up and squeezing so tightly it hurt.

“Let _me_ worry about defending Kul Tiras,” she said fiercely, her native accent slipping out. She used a small heating spell to spread warmth from her hands to his, the small orange glow dissipating the shadows between them. “By the _tides_ , Anduin, your hands are _freezing_. You shouldn’t let your hearth get so low at night…”

She probed the tips of his partially healed fingers, still dark and bruised from the previous day’s meeting with the archbishop in the Cathedral basement.

“Anduin, what…?”

“I jammed them when I was training,” Anduin lied. “Against the hilt.”

She abruptly dropped his left hand, seizing his right. For a moment, she just stared at the shackle at his wrist. Then, her fingers tentatively probed at the irritated red and bruised skin around it. In the next instant, she had his wrist pinned to her thigh, clenching her fists on either side of the iron band. 

“Hold still. I’m going to get this horrid thing off you--”

“ _NO._ ”

Valeera started. She turned on the heel of her boot and rushed into the parlor, most likely to check for signs that the kingsguard had heard his outburst. Anduin flushed in embarrassment.

“Jaina, don’t,” he pleaded in a hushed tone that was no less urgent, laying his left hand across both of hers. “You must leave it. Please.”

The look of hurt and disbelief on her face made him feel as much guilt as he would if he had slapped her instead. Jaina did not release her grip on his arm.

“Come back with me,” she urged. “I will grant you sanctuary. I can keep you safe.”

“No,” Anduin reasoned, gently. “You cannot, Aunt Jaina. A few ships are one thing. Stormwind and Gilneas would find a way to cross the sea and destroy you, most likely by air. I couldn’t live with myself if such destruction came to Kul Tiras because of me.”

Jaina clenched her jaw, seething in anger. He could tell from the way that she couldn’t meet his eyes that she knew he was right.

“Please, Jaina,” Anduin soothed, gently peeling her fingers back from his wrist. “I am the king. I cannot run away from my responsibilities.”

“This isn’t your _duty_ to endure,” Jaina spat. “What they’re doing to you is torture.”

“Nonsense,” Anduin reassured, pulling her hands onto his lap and running his thumbs over her knuckles. “It only prevents me from channeling the Light; it’s not hurting me. I’m just as comfortable here as I’ve always been.”

Jaina shook her head, her braid swinging down her back as she stared down at their hands. Behind her, Valeera slipped back into the room. She approached on soft footsteps. Anduin realized, for the first time, that Valeera was limping. Her face was covered in freshly healed cuts, and there was a terrifying thick slice through her throat that still held stitches.

“Valeera,” he said, alarmed, clenching Jaina’s hands tighter. “By the Light, you’re injured. What happened?”

Valeera shook her head and pointed to the wound in her throat. When she opened her mouth, only a hoarse hissing noise escaped. Anduin felt helplessness grip his chest as he realized that for the first time he would be unable to do anything to heal her wounds.

“Valeera wanted me to tell you that she encountered a great deal of difficulty during her last excursion,” Jaina explained, turning to make eye contact with the rogue, as if to catch an expression that would indicate that she had mistranslated something. “I’d been trying to get in touch with you for months, and then Valeera came to me. Between the two of us, we managed to find a way to get in here, with SI:7’s assistance. You’re under such heavy surveillance now, Anduin, I have never in my life seen so many parties in any kingdom with their eyes fixed on the king’s movements.”

“I know,” the king said, tiredly, fingers twitching. Jaina reached out to take his shoulders again, biting her lip as she rubbed them, like she used to do when he was younger.

“I don’t know if we’ll be able to manage this a second time,” she continued. Her voice was calm and steady, but her eyes were shining with a film of fresh tears, threatening to spill over. “I don’t even have a new hearthstone for you to use, and it’ll be useless if that thing is on your wrist. I can’t leave you here, alone...”

“I’m not alone,” Anduin soothed, cradling her hands again. “I’m in the heart of my kingdom, I have Stormwind Intelligence and my guards…”

“They are not _loyal_ to you,” Jaina insisted. “You have no one in this Light-forsaken city whom you can trust.”

“I have one or two people,” Anduin said with a small smile. “You’d be surprised, I’m even starting to talk with people who are more or less around my age.”

Jaina made a strangled sound that could have been either a laugh or a sob. She couldn’t look at him, instead shaking her head slightly as she stared off towards the wall.

“I met him, Anduin,” she said. “The Earth-Warder. Your Prince Wrathion.”

Anduin felt as if his heart had been plunged into the depths of an icy lake. His eyelids lowered as his expression closed into a passive mask, chin dipping to give his aunt a small nod. He focused on the anchor pendant hanging at her chest, trying to give the appearance that her words had no effect on him.

“I’m so sorry for all that has happened,” Jaina continued. “I never would have left him out of my sight if I’d known that there was any chance he would surrender himself to Greymane.”

“It’s not your fault, Jaina,” Anduin heard himself say, his voice mechanical. “He is nothing if not stubborn.”

Jaina squeezed his hands so hard it made him wince. “I’m still trying to get in contact with him again. Go’el and the Horde Council have heard no rumors of black dragons anywhere on Kalimdor or the Broken Isles. Kalecgos says the Wyrmrest Accord is completely in the dark. No one seems to know where he’s gone.”

Anduin absorbed this information as he had any other utterly crushing disappointment, with complete silence while his heart felt as if it were tearing itself apart. Jaina took a series of short, angry breaths.

“...But,” she said. “I have a hunch.”

Anduin didn’t dare meet her eyes. He continued to stare at her necklace, choking down the swell of confused emotion that threatened to rip open his ribs from the inside.

“I have reason to believe he may have withdrawn to Blackrock Mountain,” she continued. “Something he said to me once when we first met, makes me think he’s interested in the fount of his flight’s power there, but I don’t know for certain. It’s dangerous for me to journey through any part of this area of the Eastern Kingdoms right now, or else I would find out for myself.”

The strange amalgamation of emotion twisted and solidified into a single wave of rage. It boiled up, flushing Anduin’s face red, blood pounding beneath his temples, causing him to clench both his teeth and his fists for a single horrifying moment.

“I will personally see to it that you are pardoned and Kul Tiras is released from this blockade,” Anduin declared, each hard word chosen with great care. The wave of anger abated with each second that passed, the sound of his own voice grounded him. “If I cannot do at least that much, then what good am I as king.”

“Anduin, you are a _good_ \--”

“Please, Aunt Jaina,” Anduin interrupted, seizing Jaina’s hands once again and squeezing them to silence her. “Let me protect you. I will rein in the navy and re-open communications between Kul Tiras and the Alliance. I swear it.”

The Lord Admiral pursed her lips, so tightly they were white when she finally released them to speak. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

Anduin’s shoulders slumped and he released her hands, ears burning at the tone of her voice that didn’t quite reach the allowance she had intended. Her worry was clear on the tip of her tongue.

Warm fingers touched his chin, tipping it up to meet Jaina’s gaze. He found he didn’t have the strength to resist as she pulled him in for one last embrace. He let his head rest on her shoulder, closing his eyes for a moment as she stroked the back of his head, gentle fingers pushing at the tangles in his hair.

“Take care of yourself,” she whispered. “Promise me that you will.”

“I will,” Anduin said, his dull voice muffled by her cloak. “I’ll write to you soon.”

She squeezed his hand and he held onto it for as long as he could as she stood up and walked towards the other end of the room, near the bathroom door. Valeera stepped forward, crouching down before him. She produced a letter from the folds of her cloak and passed it into his hands. As Anduin took the letter, she leaned in, taking him by the shoulders. Her lips moved as she tried to whisper something, but her face contorted in pain as a strangled choking noise bubbled in her throat instead.

“Valeera, no, don’t try to speak,” Anduin urged as he instinctively reached out to grip her elbows, though he knew the Light would not come. “You should rest. You’ve done so much for me and my father.”

His voice cracked, but he managed to recover quickly enough.

“I don’t know if House Wrynn can ever pay you back for your service.”

The blood elf shook her head, hard enough to spill her long blonde ponytail out from beneath her hood. She leaned in and gave him a quick, rough kiss on his forehead, fingers gripping the back of his head to pull him toward her. She rose to her feet and strode towards Jaina, meeting her eyes. The two women exchanged nods. 

Valeera released something from her hand and Jaina’s fingertips lit with lilac arcane circles. Anduin’s eyes crossed as the space in the bedroom contorted and a strange portal opened right in front of where their feet stood. He heard familiar whispers hiss in the back of his mind and he stifled a cry of surprise as he slapped his left hand over the manacle now burning on his wrist. 

Void energy was curling everywhere. Thick tendrils of it slid from the tear Jaina and Valeera had ripped in reality. He watched Jaina step through, a low scream whistling through the air as her limbs were swallowed by the inky darkness. Valeera, her entire body now rippling with a familiar violet light, followed, the scream making Anduin’s ears ring. Once they were through, it sealed shut behind them, like a seam had been mended, and he was alone in the quiet of his dark bedroom once more. 

Anduin used a finger to break Valeera’s wax seal and slid the papers from the letter. Valeera’s private, personal mission had failed, horribly, and she had not been in a state to receive news of the coup in Stormwind. Because of the security placed on him during his captivity, she had been utterly unable to reach him. SI:7 had been unwilling to cooperate with her until recently, when she had approached them with the excuse of finding some way to sneak Lord Proudmoore in to check on her nephew’s health.

Valeera would no longer be able to carry out her normal duties given the increased security around the Keep, in particular around his chambers. She could not say what she was doing, only that she would not leave the Eastern Kingdoms again until she could ensure his safety.

She did not sign the letter. Instead of a farewell, it ended with a single line:

_I must go to Westfall._

The sound of the parlor doors opening and armored boots approaching sent ripples of white cold fear tearing through Anduin’s limbs. He bit the inside of his mouth and remained motionless on the floor in front of the cold hearth, the hair on the back of his neck standing up and bile building in his throat as he felt the presence of guards in his bedroom.

“Your Majesty, are you alright?” One of the guards asked while the others investigated the room. “We heard a noise, it sounded like a scream.”

“I had a nightmare,” Anduin said, voice without emotion, not looking up from the old ash in the grate. “Nothing is amiss. Thank you for your thoroughness, but please leave me to go back to sleep.”

Despite the order, the guards did not leave right away. Anduin did not loosen his jaw until they had departed, closing the parlor doors behind them with the too-familiar click of the heavy brass door latches.

* * *

The War Room in Stormwind Keep was filled with each and every one of the king’s advisors and their aids, along with several high ranking nobles who were heavily involved in the daily tasks that turned the cogs of the kingdom. They filled in the spaces between the tables and desks. The king himself stood at one end of the room, staring at them all, jaw squared, hands folded over the top of his cane. The chatter continued as it normally did, despite his observation. Someone had sent for food and servants deftly maneuvered through the crowd with trays of the last summer fruits and cold meats.

Anduin banged the end of his cane five times against the stones at his feet. He cleared his throat and his voice rang out, strikingly loud: 

“YOUR ATTENTION. NOW.”

Most conversation ceased, immediately, a number of startled faces turning at the unfamiliar tone booming from the king. What little murmurs were left died soon after. An uneasy silence descended over the room. It continued as the king took a step forward, reaching for a rich piece of heavy parchment from the nearest table. It bore the distinct seal of House Wrynn, as well as the king’s impeccable cursive handwriting.

“Is there anyone here who can tell me what this is?” Anduin demanded, holding the parchment aloft so that it could be seen by the nobility who stood the farthest from him. When no one responded, he turned his head and held it out to a tall man who stood at the front of the assembly. “King Greymane, enlighten us.”

Genn’s grizzled face was set like stone. Anduin kept his gaze and his outstretched arm steady, mouth drawn into a stern, immovable line. The worgen stepped forward and with a small bow of his head, accepted the parchment, maintaining cool eye contact the entire time. His gaze at last flickered down to the writing, smoothing his beard with one hand as he read, silently, to himself. After an agonizing few minutes, during which one present could have heard a pin drop, the King of Gilneas cleared his throat.

“‘I, High King Anduin Llane Wrynn, declare on this the thirty-first day of late summer that Lord Admiral Jaina Proudmoore of Kul Tiras be absolved of all crimes against the Kingdom of Stormwind, up to and including harboring known criminal Wrathion the Earth-Warder, then only known as the Black Prince. Henceforth, Kul Tiras shall be reinstated to full privileges as an equal member of the Great Alliance. All troops and ships are ordered to withdraw from any attempt to assault or sabotage trade routes to and from the islands. So says the High King, may he one day again stand within the Light’s grace.’”

Genn lowered the parchment and resumed his pointed glare, but Anduin was no longer looking at the worgen. The High King’s line of sight was fixed out over the crowd, still utterly silent.

“Well read, King Greymane,” Anduin declared, his voice still loud and cold, ringing off the War Room walls. “It was one of the easiest missives I’ve ever had the privilege of writing, considering I have written two more exactly like it, word for word, over the past two months.”

He let the silence stretch, clenching his teeth together. 

“I am the High King of Stormwind and Leader of the Great Alliance,” Anduin was almost shouting, his voice ripping from his throat out over the room like it would over a field of soldiers in formation before battle. “Her navy and her soldiers are mine to control. If I say we are to withdraw troops from a naval blockade, then we withdraw those troops with as much speed as it takes for our best messengers to send word to those ships’ captains. If I declare a nation to be in good standing with the Alliance, then that nation and her people will stand, shoulder-to-shoulder, with every single one of us together as children of Azeroth.”

His heart was pounding loudly in his breast. The faces he saw were a mix of anger, disgust, a few smirking, but with an underlying apprehension that satisfied him.

“Tomorrow I will set sail with Vice Admiral Keller to personally call back any and all Alliance ships that are still assaulting the nation of Kul Tiras. Once the islands are at peace, I will then escort Captain Tandred Proudmoore and _Tiffin’s Melody_ back to safe rest in Stormwind Harbor. Any further attempt either to interfere with Lord Admiral Proudmoore’s ability to contribute to the Great Alliance or to harass the Kul Tiran members of the Alliance will be dealt with swiftly. Does anyone present find themselves still having trouble interpreting the meaning of my orders?”

No one said a word. Anduin nodded.

“This meeting is adjourned,” the king said, his voice dropping to a calmer tone. “Thank you all for your time.”

The nobles began to clear out in a wave, leaving much of the food and wine untouched on the tables. Genn remained standing, continuing to stare at him with an equal intensity to how he watched his daughter when she was present in a room. His gaze was ice-blue like the sky outside. Strands of his gray hair had fallen out of place, landing across his brow, that he made no move to push back.

“An excellent speech, Your Majesty,” he said in his usual monotone, respectful but laced with the arrogance of his age and his rank. “I think you would do well if you used such displays to command your court more often. The long term health of any king’s council only benefits from periodic reminders of who ultimately wears the crown in the Lion’s Seat.”

Anduin closed his eyes for a brief moment. He turned to the closest servant, a younger woman with a crown of red braids, standing waiting with an empty tray to take used glasses and napkins back to the kitchens.

“Ella, would you please have all of the servants and guards leave the room? And if you would, shut and lock the doors. I would like to have a private audience with King Greymane.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” 

The servant bobbed into a curtsy and began to pass on his instructions. Genn remained standing where he was, staring out the window with his hands folded behind his back. Anduin stood leaning against the table, knuckles of his left hand digging into the wood surface while the other leaned into his cane, trying to ease his weight from his aching right leg. He waited until the room had been cleared and the last of the doors were shut tight.

“Why have you been thwarting my orders,” Anduin asked, quietly.

Genn lifted his chin, a contemplative noise coming from the back of his throat. He turned to face Anduin fully, taking two heavy steps forward so that the table no longer stood between them. Drawn at full height, he towered inches above Anduin’s tall frame.

“You are far too liberal with those whom you have personal biases towards,” the old worgen retorted. “One of your personal failings, I have no reservations about telling you.”

“Jaina is very dear to me,” Anduin countered, his voice still quiet. He did feel smaller, somehow, now that it was just the two of them. The adrenaline that had ferried him through the tense speech earlier had dissipated. “But she cannot be faulted for hasty actions taken in the midst of a confusing coup. You did not reach out to alert any other members of the Alliance as to what you were doing before executing the House of Nobles’ orders. She did what she thought at the time, in good faith, was best for the Alliance and her High King.”

“Her proclivity towards disobedience is not the mark of a good long-term ally,” Genn retorted. “I am not the only leader of a noble house who is working towards a joint petition to sever Kul Tiras permanently from the Alliance because of this.”

The younger king felt heat rise once again to his face, burning across his cheeks and ears.

“You are certainly welcome to try,” Anduin replied. “At your leisure. However, I still have the final say in who bears the Alliance’s banners. This power was not given to me by the House of Nobles; it was given to me by all leaders of the Great Alliance. Until the day that is no longer the case, Kul Tiras will remain an honored member and her people will be treated as such. Any action to the contrary will be taken as treason, and not just to Stormwind.”

Genn was frighteningly still as he listened. When Anduin fell silent, the old worgen nodded, running his calloused fingers across the brush of his gray beard again.

“You shouldn’t underestimate the House of Nobles’ ability to influence the greater dealings of the Alliance,” he advised. “You are not popular, Anduin, as I continue to tell you again and again. Most everyone in your court is aggravated by your insistence on sulking through every social engagement like a child being dragged by his ear.”

“I have given them exactly what they wanted, with no complaint,” Anduin retorted, his cheeks reddening. “I have a list of their daughters, I introduced myself to each and every one of them at the ball, and I will be meeting with a select few individually to assess if one of them will make a suitable choice for the next queen consort...”

“By the Light, Anduin, courtship isn’t a mechanical procedure, like oiling your armor or sword training drills,” Genn interrupted. “It is your _attitude_ that needs fixing. No father in his right mind wants to hand his daughter off to a cold, unfeeling monarch.”

Anduin struggled to say something, but he choked on his strangled words. It felt like an invisible hand had closed around his throat.

“Make no mistake, your premature departure from the ball without asking any girl for a single dance did not go unnoticed; it was the only thing the nobility seemed to want to gossip about in court the other morning,” Genn said. “I suppose you and my daughter both think that stunt was very amusing.”

Anduin leaned into his cane, saying nothing for a moment as he studied the old, worn wooden handle, considering his options. 

“It was an accident.”

The lilt in his tone betrayed too much sarcasm and the atmosphere in the War Room seemed to shift. When Anduin dared to glance up again, Genn had gone completely still. Beautiful, white light from the sky-blue day outside spilled in around the worgen’s silhouette in the window, partially obscuring the Gilnean king in the room’s dusty shade. His hard-lined, furious eyes betrayed the depth of his rage.

“You’re still holding out for that dragon,” Genn growled. When Anduin remained silent, he spat, “This is unbelievable...it’s _untoward_.”

Anduin said nothing. He squared his jaw and stared back in defiance. Genn paced, his face reddening, barely-contained anger manifesting in each small, agitated gesture. The swing of his fist beat down hard in his own broad palm as he spoke, for want of a different target.

“Continue, then, with this childish fantasy, Your Majesty,” he snarled with resentment, between his sharp gritted teeth. “Perhaps you will succeed in putting an end to the Wrynn family line in the most devastating way that any of your forefathers wouldn’t have dared to imagine.”

He stepped closer, still pounding his fist into his palm.

“Change the laws. Destroy the Church. Decimate Stormwind. Dissolve the Great Alliance. Have it so that the two of you can indulge in your lascivious whims, either in private or by making an open mockery of everything your kingdom once stood for. Perhaps you will even succeed in finding a bit of happiness together, for a few years.”

Genn continued his slow advance, eyes blackening as the pupils expanded to swallow the gentle blue irises. Anduin pressed into his cane, staring back, saying nothing. He silently dared Genn to shift, to attack, to give him some reason to retaliate by lashing out. When he had reached the spot where the king stood and they were standing toe-to-toe, Genn put forth two fingers and pressed hard into the king’s chest, sending a small, shooting trail of pain through the younger man’s ribs.

“How long do you think you have until this body begins to truly break down?” Genn’s voice was suddenly inhumanly low. “Five years? Two? Or are you as optimistic about your health as you are with any other dire prospect? Perhaps the Light will bless you with another decade of agony as your mobility deteriorates. What will happen to you after your people have had enough of being ruled by utter depravity and chase their king and his hedonist dragon consort out in a violent uprising? Do you honestly believe that a Dragon Aspect will put up with having a cripple for a consort? Will the great Earth-Warder spend his precious time bringing you your every meal when you are no longer able to walk?”

Anduin broke his gaze, feeling as if a great weight had slammed into his chest and knocked all of the air from his lungs. His mind was racing. It became hard to breathe. His eyes found purchase on the far window, where he could just make out a stripe of ocean on the horizon, glittering beneath the sun, framed by the roofs of two houses.

“Oh, forgive me,” Genn’s hot voice bristled. “Perhaps it hasn't yet occurred to you that there will come a time when he is still young and fertile, with eons left to endure, but your joints will have seized up long ago. What, then, when he realizes what he’s been burdened with, after you’ve given up everything for him? Will he leave you to starve, a forgotten pet in a dark cave somewhere? Or will he be kind, and at least coerce some lesser mortal into taking care of you in your remaining years? Maybe he will even find it in his black heart to pay you a visit every now and then while keeping you in blissful ignorance of whatever other wretched creatures he’s collected to warm his nest.”

Anduin turned around, trying to tune the unwanted sermon out, but Genn was relentless. The elder worgen stalked as the High King started to limp across the room.

“I realize these are all unpleasant thoughts but you are the only surviving son of the house that holds the seat of Stormwind’s monarchy. It is _imperative_ that you consider this.” Genn was now shouting as he followed, raising two fingers to tap at his own temples. “ _Think._ You need a _wife_ , Anduin, someone who will consider it her duty to help take care of you in your old age. And most importantly, your kingdom needs heirs from a good bloodline. There will come a time when you _will_ want children, mark my words, and you will regret the youth that you’ve wasted when you’re sorting through arranged marriage propositions from a wheelchair in your thirties. Don’t you think that your children deserve as many of your remaining good years as you can give to them? That they will want a father who is capable of teaching them how to walk and wield a sword--”

“ _ENOUGH._ ”

Anduin’s strangled yell frightened them both. The king’s face had gone white and his chest heaved with each labored breath he took. Genn’s voice at last went silent, his own expression a mixture of grim condescension and concern. He held out his hand as if in apology, but Anduin turned from it. He did his best to hide his limp as he threw open the War Room doors and exited the chamber, hand shaking as he gripped the cane with white knuckles beneath his gloves. 

Genn did not follow.

* * *

The sacred texts of the Holy Light tumbled to the floor with two loud scratching thuds, the covers flapping open and pages bending over stray pieces of rice on the floor. Anduin doubled over, suppressing a whimper as he cradled his throbbing hands to his stomach, rocking on his knees.

“I’m sorry,” he choked, staring at the bent spines of the two books. He started to reach for them, but the sight of his shaking, bruised fingers made his stomach churn. He knew he would not be able to lift them. “I can’t.”

Archbishop Arthur took a series of slow steps forward. His black robes billowed around his knees as he knelt down and gently picked the two texts, laying a tender kiss on the cover of each, before bringing them over to the bookshelf. He returned to where Anduin still knelt on the floor with his shoulders hunched forward over his hands in his lap.

“It’s been brought to my attention that elsewhere you have not been as sincere about your intentions to repent as you are in this room,” the archbishop said, clasping his hands over the front folds of his robes.

Anduin’s chin jerked up, his eyes wide and angry.

“Did King Greymane make this claim?” he asked.

Arthur’s brow furrowed and he twirled his thumbs. “You should know that the contract of secrecy between a priest of the Holy Light and a penitent sinner within the walls of the confessional is a sacred one.”

Anduin had nothing to say to this. He continued to stare up at the archbishop, squaring his jaw and trying not to grind his teeth.

“I think this day you should finish your penance outside the bounds of this room,” the archbishop said. “Think upon your sins as you carry out your duties, and consider how you can quiet the restlessness in your soul.” 

As the seconds passed, Anduin realized that Arthur had no intention to say prayers over his hands.

“Go, now, with the Light, my son.” The archbishop gestured to the door.

With some difficulty, Anduin rose to his feet, trailing rice as he silently limped out towards the hall, back to the room where his street clothes were folded, waiting for him. It took twice as long to get dressed in his street clothes, using his teeth to tug his gloves on over his shaking hands. He clasped his cloak over his shoulders and headed out into the streets, tucking his free hand under his arm as he used the other to gingerly grip his cane and make the long, slow walk back to the Keep.

* * *

The skies were iron gray and overcast, bloated with the threat of rain, the air muggy in the setting late afternoon sun. Anduin ignored the single, light drop he felt on his brow and hurried down the gangplank, cane knocking against the damp, salt-stained boards. He headed towards where two hulking figures were making their way with caution down the dock.

“Captain Proudmoore!” Anduin shouted.

Tandred sharply turned, thin blond hair brushing over the collar of his sturdy, long-tailed coat.

“Your Majesty,” he greeted, scooping his tricorn hat from his head and sweeping into a bow. His first mate copied the gesture, muttering a quicker version.

“I wanted to personally welcome you and your crew back to Stormwind,” Anduin said, loud enough to be heard by most of the guards and dockworkers in the vicinity, as well as many curious citydwellers who had come to witness the arrival. “In addition to apologizing for the miscommunication that delayed your return back to your rightful place in Stormwind’s armada. I realize that your trust will be difficult to earn back, but I would like to extend an invitation to you all to join me for a homecoming feast at the Keep in three days time.”

Tandred’s light blue eyes were serious and wary, his mouth drawn into a tight line behind his light beard. But he gave a respectful nod. “It would be an honor, Your Majesty. The crew is happy to have brought _Tiffin’s Melody_ home to harbor.”

After arranging accommodations for Tandred and his entire crew at one of the finest inns in the Trade District, Anduin rode back to the Keep. It was very late in the evening, but there was still someone in the stables who was able and willing to take Reverence and ensure that the horse was properly brushed down for the night. The king visited the kitchens to decline dinner and instead stumbled up the tower stairs to his quarters.

He locked the parlor doors and leaned his cane against the wall. Using the heels of both hands he undid the gold clasp of his cloak with a hiss escaping between his teeth. He let the fabric slide from his shoulders and pool where it dropped on the floor. He picked up his cane again and limped into the washroom where he leaned against the edge of the sink basin. He used his teeth to grip the tip of the third finger on his right-hand glove and with a few tugs wriggled his hand out, repeating the process with the other one, letting the garments drop to the floor. He knocked the water on and thrust his hands underneath, biting his lip as he washed crusted blood from the raised tears running through the center of his palms. The skin was still cracked and bleeding, but the warm water felt soothing on his bruised fingers. He managed to throw back an entire potion and limped into the parlor with a small towel, where he collapsed on the sofa. 

Anduin was too tired to make a fire so he lay in the dark, towel wrapped around his hands, staring at the ceiling. He watched the shadows grow darker but also the light from the moon brighten the edges of the rafters. He dozed, in and out of sleep, letting the potion course through him.

The sound of the king’s balcony doors opening, accompanied by a gust of damp, muggy wind, made him bolt upright and fully out of sleep. Anduin snapped his head towards the sound before he had a chance to think about what danger he was in. His heart leapt into his throat at the sight of a dark figure standing by the windows, only to settle again, as he burrowed his hands more fully into the folds of the towel.

“Tess,” he exhaled sharply.

“Your Majesty.” 

The princess dipped into a perfect, formal curtsy, despite the fact that she was dressed in a pair of stealth leathers he had never seen her wear before. She wore an elbow-length tunic with a high collar beneath a well worn, supple leather chestguard stitched with carrying hooks meant for knives, daggers, and whatever else a rogue might need within hand’s reach to avoid an altercation. 

“How did you get in here?” he asked, sternly.

“I scaled the tower wall,” Tess explained, with patience, her long, thick braid swinging over her shoulder as she pushed back the hood of her black cloak. “Obviously.”

“Wh...it...that...is an _incredibly_ dangerous thing to do at present,” Anduin sputtered, his face tight with a volatile mix of barely suppressed anger, fear, and relief. “Light only knows how many of my guards saw you scamper up here!”

“Pray, Anduin, tell me, who exactly in your guard, or all of Stormwind for that matter, would want to stop a Gilnean noblewoman who is most likely your rumored suitor from sneaking into your bedroom at this time of night?” Tess asked with a brisk roll of her shoulders as she strode across the room towards the fireplace. “I did do SI:7 the courtesy of alerting them beforehand that I would be paying you a late night visit.”

Tess went over to the fireplace and tossed in three logs from the generous stack Anduin kept by the side of the mantle. She reached for something from her belt pocket. With a few scrapes and a spark, there was a small flame eating at the dry wood sitting in the grate. Warm light spilled over the stone floor and carpet, haloing Tess’ small frame as she crouched and blew gently. Soon she had coaxed a proper roaring fire and was heading towards the liquor cabinet to investigate.

“Did you not get my letter?” Anduin asked. “Warning you that I wouldn’t be able to attend dinner tonight?”

“I did,” Tess said, popping the stopper from an unfinished bottle of wine from the previous night. “I also overheard my father saying some disquieting things about you to my mother from their bedroom, so I felt a moral obligation to check in on your wellbeing.”

Anduin bristled, shifting his hips so that the entire bundle, his hands, the towel, sank between the new gap between his thighs, the heels of both boots planted firmly on the floor in front of the sofa. “As you can see, I am quite fine.”

Tess took a large sip of wine and carried the bottle with an extra glass over to the small tea table before the sofa. She set the items down with unceremonious thuds and seated herself in the armchair that faced perpendicular to the sofa. With a few scoots, she dragged it closer. Anduin shifted self-consciously as she poured.

Tess slid the extra wine glass, now heavy with a generous amount of dark red wine, in his direction. She held aloft her own glass, meeting him dead in the eye. “Come, Your Majesty. Let’s have a toast.”

“A toast to what,” Anduin stalled.

“To your success in bringing _Tiffin’s Melody_ back home, of course. And for somehow managing to stoke my father’s anger far beyond anything I have been capable of provoking in years.”

Tess sat in silence, mouth taut, large brown eyes dark and impassive below her raised brows, as she watched the king continue to sit awkwardly with his shoulders hunched forward over his lap.

“What is wrong with your hands?” She asked, finally, pulling her wine glass back between her knees as she let her elbows perch on top of her thighs.

“Nothing,” Anduin was too quick to say. “They’re fine.”

“I can smell the blood from the windows,” Tess replied.

“I jammed them on the ship today,” Anduin tried again. “I made quite the fool of myself while doing it. The whole crew of the _Lionheart_ now knows that their king doesn’t have proper sea legs.”

“Typical southern optimism. Of course Stormwind would let the king set sail with a crew that did not have a single competent physician in their midst.” Tess took a drink and set her glass down on the tea table, holding out her own hands. “Let’s see.”

Anduin supposed he could have resisted. He could have shouted and ordered her to leave, bellowed for the guards standing a wall’s thickness away in the hall. He could have stood up and kicked the wine glasses, done something to offend her, to drive her out.

But he was so tired.

He untangled his hands from the folds of the small towel, about to let them rest palm-up on his knees. Tess snatched them up at once, bending over to stare down at them, eyes wide and reflecting the flicker from the fireplace.

Anduin realized, in that moment, that Tess’ silence was comparably frightening in its stillness to that of her father’s, even without the looming threat of changing into a raging worgen. She stared at his hands for a moment, eyes bulging, before blinking twice and dipping her chin with a small _hmm_.

“Right,” she said, carefully. She released his hands, letting them drift gently to rest where he had intended them to be initially. She stood up, shin knocking against the corner of the table. “Just one moment.”

“Tess,” Anduin said, watching her make a beeline for the nearest open window. “Wait, where are you going?”

“Just one moment, if you please,” she repeated, curtly, one leg already over the windowsill, her silhouette rippling as the fade spell began to engulf her lithe form. “I will return shortly.”

“Tess--”

But the princess was already out of sight. Gone.

Anduin was left sitting, alone, staring at the evening breeze brushing the curtains at his windows. He turned around and slumped back into the sofa, hands dangling on his legs and neck rolled back across the top so that he was staring straight up at the ceiling. He listened to the sound of logs crackling as the fire continued to eat through the wood.

It was sooner than he expected when he heard the sound of leather rustling against the windowsill. He didn’t bother to look up, eyes fixed on the cobwebs in the rafters. Tess dug into a small pouch at her hip and pulled out something small, wrapped in crinkled plastic that she unwrapped and held up to his mouth. 

“Open.”

Anduin raised his head, at first tilting his chin away towards his shoulder, but relaxed at the faint whiff of peppermint. He opened his mouth and Tess pressed the candy to his tongue. As he rolled the candy around with his tongue and began to suck, he felt the healing magic begin to spread outward from his mouth, similar to taking a sip from a healing potion.

Tess knelt down before him, shoving the tea table back to make room. The wine sloshed violently in their untouched glasses, the bottle rocking in place, but nothing spilled. She unpacked a spool of bandages, medical thread and needle, and two tubes of ointment along with a blotting cloth. A glowing vial spilled teal blue light across his knees and illuminated the amber streaks in Tess’ brown eyes.

“Drink,” she instructed, holding the brim of the uncorked vial up to his lips.

He did as she asked, a blissful sense of relief rolling through him that tasted faintly of the sweet peppermint still melting on his tongue.

“Who did this to you?” Tess asked, unscrewing a tube of ointment and dabbing a generous amount onto the spare cloth.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Anduin said to the distant wall, voice hollow around the candy, now tucked in the pocket of his cheek.

Tess grasped his right hand, shaking it once with a fury as if she would wrench it right from his wrist, using her thumbs to pull the long, blistering wound apart. 

“Do you really think I don’t know exactly what these are from?” She demanded, looking him straight in the eye as he winced. “Who is doing this to you? Who would _dare_ strike the High King like this?”

“Tess, _please_ ,” Anduin wrenched his hands from her grasp and tucked them, fingers loosely clasped, back tightly between his thighs. “Absolutely no one can know.”

Tess pursed her lips as she studied his lap, squaring her jaw in such a way that her chin jutted forward. After a moment, her expression flickered, eyelashes fluttering as she raised her eyes to meet his again. She then leaned in and raised her right hand in such a way that her fingers and thumb were curled as if in a fist, except for her smallest finger, which stuck out towards the king. 

“Have you ever made a pinky promise before, Your Majesty?”

Anduin stared at her hand as if she were hiding some kind of poisoned dart between her fingers. 

“A what?”

“It’s the most solemn of vows,” Tess explained, her voice lilting with friendly, kind sarcasm as she looked up at him from under her dark eyelashes. “Usually only very close friends are brave enough to commit to it.”

“No, I haven’t,” Anduin replied, tersely, unmoving from where he sat loosely cradling his injured hands between his thighs. He stared at her as if she had lost her mind.

Tess gave a small laugh from the base of her throat, smirk widening as her heavy brows narrowed and she leaned in. “I’m not surprised. The children of nobles don’t grow up having friends, they grow up having future backstabbers.”

Anduin felt a twitch of a smile cross his own lips. Tess gently hooked her small right finger around the bruised and broken one of his left, pulling their hands directly between them. Anduin let the rest of his stiff fingers curl away from his stinging palm, the other still cradled protectively in his lap. The marred state of his hand looked all the worse when held next to Tess’ small unblemished one.

“I, Tess Greymane,” she said, staring directly into his eyes, maintaining a deadly serious expression. “Shadow of the Uncrowned, First Princess of Gilneas, do solemnly swear, upon pain of death, to keep the secrets of His Majesty High King Anduin Llane Wrynn, until my last dying breath, lest the damned ghouls of Darkshire wander up the way of the purple moors and cut the sinews of my beating heart right out of my chest.”

She dipped her chin, brown eyes narrowing. “Now we must both spit in our palms and shake on it.”

“I _beg_ your pardon?”

Tess laughed, releasing Anduin’s pinky and bringing both hands to clutch at her knees. “I’m teasing. Now, have I sufficiently proven my loyalty to the monarchy of Stormwind or shall I leave you to drink alone and wallow in self-pity as you clumsily bandage your own wounds?”

After a moment’s hesitation, Anduin uncurled his fingers and extended his hands toward Tess, letting his wrists rest on his own knees. As Tess busied herself with dabbing the healing cream into his bruised, torn skin and covering the dressings with bandages, he explained everything. He watched as Tess’ humoring smile faded and felt her gestures become increasingly tense as she wrapped his hands and fingers with the gauze. At last, she gave a final tug to secure the bandage on his left hand and rose to her feet. She began to pace back and forth over the carpet, one hand covering her mouth, the other square at her hip. Anduin flexed his fingers tentatively, testing the give in the medical cloth around his joints and knuckles.

“...This is not good,” she said into the palm of her hand. “This is not good at all.”

“It will be fine,” Anduin said, wearily. “Once I am able to secure a queen to sit beside me on the throne, all of this will go away…”

“The archbishop of the Church of the Holy Light is holding the High King captive in the Cathedral basement every morning,” Tess recited to herself, as if she hadn’t heard him, or even remembered that he was in the room. Her boots continued to click against the stone as she stalked the length of the rug before the fireplace. “This is coercion.”

“Yes,” Anduin agreed. “Clearly.”

“It’s a blatant play for power by the Church of the Holy Light in Stormwind,” Tess repeated, turning to face him, throwing her hand into the air. “This is _unprecedented_ in its boldness.”

“I know,” Anduin sighed, resisting the urge to close his eyes and curl up against the armrest. “My hands are tied in the matter. What choice do I have?”

“Refuse to go,” Tess shot back. “You are the High King, you do not have to answer to anyone. Push back against them, and they will yield.”

“...It’s not that simple.”

“You think so?” Tess now had both hands planted on her hips, shaking her head and glaring at the floor as she walked. “I am willing to bet that as much as you do not want the public to find out what is happening in that basement, the Church is twice as afraid.”

“...You’re not serious,” Anduin said.

Tess stopped pacing. Her dagger was in her hands and she was playing with the handle as she spoke, the blade glinting yellow and orange as it caught stray flickers of firelight.

“They wanted to publicly whip you, you know,” she said, the blade spinning as she twirled the handle across the backs of her fingers from pointer to small finger then back again. “The other priests and bishops of the church. That was what the majority of them voted to do to you after your trial, but they were overruled by Archbishop Arthur. That was what the traditional punishment for an offense like this was.”

Anduin’s jaw clenched as his fingers twitched where they still lay across his thighs. He could feel the color draining from his face, feeling slightly nauseous at the thought. “...I don’t understand your point.”

“Think about it,” Tess urged, drawing the tip of the knife through the air as if she were sketching a picture. “King Anduin Llane Wrynn, the benevolent Lion of Peace, the gentle son of the Wolf, holding back cries of agony as he lets whoever put lashes into his already scar-covered back. Whatever crowd gathered to witness such a display, I guarantee you the Black Dragonflight would be the furthest thing from their minds.”

Anduin shook his head, bangs flicking over his face. “I have a hard time believing that. I’m a disgrace. The Church is only delivering what the scriptures demand for penance, which the majority of my people are devoted followers of.”

“Do you know what they said of you on the streets, after news of your miraculous recovery reached us?” Tess asked, flicking the tip of the dagger in his direction. “That your bones had been ‘touched by the naaru’ themselves. If the archbishop had you publicly flogged, the Cathedral would need to bar its doors for weeks to protect itself from the resulting mob. You underestimate the power you have to inspire your people, Anduin.”

The thought of Matron Nightingale, her face covered by a scarf, bringing him water, flickered in the back of his mind. She had seemed frightened and worried, but beneath it all had been an uncharacteristic anger. He had mistaken that anger initially for disappointment at himself.

Something about the look on his face must have betrayed his change in thought, for Tess flicked her blade through the air once again, jabbing the point towards the manacle on his right wrist.

“If you gave the order, I could have that lock undone in less than a minute,” she declared. “You could channel the Holy Light through your limbs in the next _instant_ and mend those bruises in your knuckles before you lay your head to rest tonight.”

“And then I will be completely excommunicated from the Church, denounced as a blasphemous king,” Anduin said, dejectedly. He leaned forward and managed to pick up the roll of bandages, slowly winding up the trailing piece. “The Church of the Holy Light will fight every word that comes from my mouth or is penned by my hand. The House of Nobles will split amongst religious and secular lines and the entire kingdom will be brought to a standstill. Families will starve waiting for debt relief that will not come because all resources will be sucked into the resulting civil war.”

Anduin set the tidy roll of bandages down on the tea table and began to slowly pick up caps and screw them back onto their respective tubes of ointment. Tess violently shook her head, dark braid jerking over her shoulders, but she slid her dagger back into its hilt. She walked around the tea table to sink into the couch beside him, bringing her chin to rest on one hand propped up on her knee while she stared into the fire.

“This cannot be allowed to happen,” she said.

“It’s how it goes,” Anduin said, fingers shaking as they straightened the line of tubes on the table. “What’s done is done. All I can do is move forward. I will regain control over my kingdom, I simply must appease the offended parties first. Like the church. Like your father.”

“Appeasement,” Tess snorted, her hand running down over her face, pressing into the bags beneath her eyes. “Every year that passes, my father seems to sink his claws deeper and deeper into this kingdom. And into you.”

Anduin looked over at her, startled. “...His intentions are good. Your father is a wise man, Tess. He has endured many unimaginable crises during his reign. He is only doing what he thinks is best for the Alliance and for Gilneas.”

“ _Gilneas_ ,” Tess spoke the word like it was poison in her mouth. “No one wishes to acknowledge what they are looking at with their own two eyes. Not my mother. Not my people. I was in denial myself, until this year. Seeing how smoothly he picked up the Stormwind banner, how much he relished unfurling the Gilnean standards to look at while he sat in the Lion’s Seat.”

Anduin closed his eyes. He tried to shut out Tess’ next words, but they came, regardless, like a wave crashing down from the surf.

“Why would he lift a finger to push a single Gilnean brick back into place when he has a replacement son, a replacement heir, a replacement kingdom, all nestled beside a warmer ocean, that he has the power to influence as much as he pleases.”

For a while, neither of them spoke. Anduin sank back into the cushions, feeling his strength draining from him with each second that passed. The night ahead seemed so long, but when the dawn came, it would also come far too quickly.

“...Thank you,” he said, finally, his voice low and soft.

Tess murmured something indiscernible. She was picking at the skin near her nails once again.

“I should go,” she declared, rising to her feet. “And you ought to get some rest. Sleep will also heal those wounds.”

Anduin watched as Tess swiftly picked up each first aid item and tucked them into her bag. She left a few peppermints on the table, beside their untouched wine glasses.

“Aren’t you worried what Genn will say if he catches you sneaking back in at this hour?” Anduin asked.

“No,” Tess replied, her voice biting as she adjusted the bag, securing the strap that ran taut across her chest. “He knows better than to concern himself with my comings and goings anymore.”

Her tone was so loaded that Anduin almost found himself asking another probing question, but he swallowed the words, unsure of what he would find if he tried to overturn such a rock.

“Would you like me to escort you out of the Keep the proper way?” Anduin asked, instead, as he stood up.

Tess gave him a crooked smile over her shoulder. “No, thank you. It’s not often that I have an excuse to scale such a magnificent tower. Besides, it’s the perfect time of year to go out and enjoy the night air.”

Anduin gave a short laugh as he turned to watch her make her way over to the window. “Have a safe journey, then, Your Highness.”

“Good night, Your Majesty. Sleep well.”

And then she was gone, leaving Anduin alone in the parlor, his aching hands trembling by his sides.

* * *

The halls of Stormwind Keep were dark, like they were in his old memories, always cloaked in shadow, always something slithering in the corners. Anduin limped down the hall, the sound of his cane clicking off the stones echoing beyond. Each step seemed to take forever, sometimes pulling him forward, other times pushing him back, but at last he staggered into the throne room, making his way up the steps to the Lion’s Seat. He threw back the tails of his coat, sinking into the cushions, leaning back against the cold stained glass.

Something was coming. He could sense it, see it just out of the corner of his eye. As soon as he glanced at the shadow, it whipped its head toward him, white eyes locking with his. Anduin’s shoulders jolted up towards his ears, gloved hands gripping, clutching the armrests. He could not move. He was pinned in place, helpless to only watch as it glided down the hall towards him. His heart beat louder and louder. When he opened his mouth, no sound came out, no matter how much he pushed at his throat.

Lady Katrana Prestor stepped into the light, slitted eyes boring into him, face passive, brows lined with some kind of white fury. Anduin pressed back into the glass, digging his heels into the blue carpet, slipping over the stone. She leaned over him, her hot fingers taking him by the chin. He flinched, a whimper escaping his lips as her claws drew small crescents of blood along his jaw. She was inescapable.

“What’s the matter, King Anduin?” she asked, her voice defiant, as if she dared him to actually answer the question. “You don’t want me to touch you?”

Anduin bolted upright out of the strange, shallow sleep, slapping at the very real solid weight he felt on his shoulder. The back of his head banged against the stone wall behind him.

“Sorry to startle you, Your Majesty!” The worried face of the sword trainer came into recognition, with the faint sound of whirring gears as an aluminum hand pulled away. “Are you ill?”

Anduin realized he had fallen asleep while sitting on the bench in the private room in the barracks that served as the king’s personal armory. Sun streamed in through the windows, catching every mote of dust in the air.

“No, not at all,” Anduin said, rubbing grit from his eyes. “Forgive me, Jarod, I’m afraid I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

The king noticed his hands were trembling. The grueling wounds from the previous day had been healed, through the grace of the Light channeled through the archbishop during his penance that morning. Anduin tried to steady them as he leaned over to finish pulling off his boots.

Jarod took a casual step back, folding his gnome-engineered metal arms across his broad chest. He was a tall human man, only five or so years older than Anduin himself, with a sun-worn face and long brown hair that he usually kept plaited back into a tight, thin braid. His family were peasant blacksmiths from Redridge before they had been killed while serving in Northrend, where Jarod had lost both arms due to poorly-treated frostbite. After spending some time recovering in Khaz Modan, Jarod made his way into the ranks of Stormwind’s blacksmiths, where he slotted himself into a spot as the king’s personal trainer and armorer when Anduin had discovered his talents from working closely with the gnomes.

“Eh, I know what you mean, this horrid weather’s been keeping me up a bit myself,” Jarod offered. “Why don’t I go check over your sword again, give you a few more minutes to get settled in. When I get back I can give you a hand with the plate.”

Anduin nodded, ducking his chin to hide the hot blush crossing over his face. “Thank you.”

Jarod nodded and strode over to the opposite wall, where Shalamayne hung in an iron holder bolted into the stones. The Light heart pulsing at the center of its twin blades hummed quietly as Jarod carefully eased the blade into his hands. He gave the king a respectful bow as he took the sword with him into one of the adjoining rooms, closing the door behind him.

Anduin stripped down to his small clothes, shorts and a sleeveless shirt, and limped over to the large wardrobe from which he pulled out a brown cloth jumpsuit. He draped the entire thing across the back of his neck, empty sleeves and pant legs dangling over his shoulders so that he had both hands free to drag a long, narrow but heavy wooden trunk over to the bench. Inside, the metal gnome-engineered prosthesis he wore into battle was slotted amongst soft, sturdy holders. The limb in its original state was commissioned by the High Tinker, Gelbin Mekkatorque, and constructed by his most trusted engineers, with additional recent improvements from Prince Erazmin’s inner circle after Mechagon joined the Alliance and reunited with Gnomeregan. Anduin brushed the pad of his thumb over two symbols the engineers had engraved in the socket for him, a dove carrying an olive branch, next to the familiar Stormwind lion.

Anduin unlatched his walking prosthesis from his thigh and slipped it off, rolling the sock with it. The limb underneath was sore and red, but he ignored the ache, like he had been doing for weeks, and tugged out the thicker rubber sock and a thin rubber ring from a small pouch attached to the inner lid of the trunk. Once the limb was encased, he worked on securing the heavy jaws of the precision-fitted socket over everything. He stood up to compress the air from the vacuum seal and that was when he knew that something was wrong. The seal did not work. He patiently removed the socket, slid off the rubber ring, unrolled the rubber sock, shook it out, and repeated the process again. Again, the socket did not feel secure. Taking a single step caused his thigh to shift within it, chafing at the skin in a horribly familiar way that would inevitably lead to bruises and blisters if allowed to continue. Each successive pace took a bit of the residual limb further out, the socket shifting downward.

He was still struggling with it when Jarod returned. Seeing the king still in his small-clothes, he hesitated at first, keeping his eyes averted respectfully as the blacksmith returned Shalamayne to its holder.

“Is everything alright, Your Majesty?” Jarod asked.

Anduin sat back down at the bench, flipping the socket latch with his thumb. Air hissed as it flooded the cavity. “...I’m not sure.”

“Would you like me to have a look?”

Anduin didn’t say anything. His mouth had gone dry. He managed to nod once, bangs swinging over his cheeks. Jarod squatted down on the ground at his right-hand side and gently studied the socket, the grooved friction pads on his metal fingers probing the latch and checking the inner seal.

“It looks to me like it’s not fitting anymore,” Jarod deduced. “Nothing out of the ordinary, most likely you’ve either lost a bit of weight or muscle or both.”

Cold talons of anxiety scraped the inside of Anduin’s empty stomach, sending a wave of nausea through him. As Jarod spoke, his voice sounded like it was retreating farther and farther away.

“I would check in with the engineer who helps you with this,” Jarod suggested, tapping the metal knee lightly. “When was the last time you saw them?”

“I can’t remember,” Anduin admitted, his voice cracking. He tore off everything and began to pack it away, reaching for his everyday prosthesis.

“There you go, then, sounds like you’re overdue for a check in. Right, see, that there doesn’t look like it’s fitting so well, either,” Jarod noted, tipping his chin forward as he watched Anduin stand to seal the more lightweight socket. “It’s probably why you’re in a bit more pain than usual. You ought to rest it as much as you can until you get it refitted, we can do this another day--”

“No,” Anduin said, immediately, rolling up the pant legs of the chestnut-colored suit so that he could slip them on. “I’ll just manage with this one. I cannot afford to lose more time.”

While Anduin finished lacing himself into the linen undergarment, Jarod went over to where a suit of silver and gold plate armor sat arranged on a steel hanger. A lion shaped helm crowned the arrangement, observing the room with empty, shadowed eyes. Pieces of the blue cloth skirt and stole, stitched with swirls of rich gold embroidery, hung draped across the stone wall behind it. Anduin stood in the center of the room, arms raised so that Jarod could fasten and secure the breastplate. It took far longer than usual, Jarod tugging the leather straps as far as they could go in their buckles. Anduin stood stock-still, staring directly at his helm’s mournful expression. He could tell from the way the plate was sliding down his chest that he would no longer be able to wear it.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” Jarod admitted defeat, after a few more minutes of struggling. “You’ve lost quite a bit, that’s for certain.”

Anduin felt a ringing in his ears. When he spoke, his words were quiet, but steady. “This is not good.”

“Happens all the time,” Jarod insisted, unperturbed, as he started to unbuckle the straps again, one by one. “We’ll get you refitted, don’t you worry.”

“Such a waste of materials,” Anduin said. _The kingdom does not have the coin to spare._

“I can probably melt down some of it for reuse,” Jarod carried the hefty, expensive breastplate back over to the corner, where he locked it back in place on the stand. “Just wait there, let me fetch some spare leathers for you.”

A half-hour later, Anduin was limping down a quiet side hallway without his cane, fists clenched around empty air by his sides, tied within an unfamiliar set of lightweight leather armor. Instead of Shalamayne, a narrow, dull practice broadsword swung from a scabbard belted to the side of his waist. He stopped just outside the private entrance to the great hall, listening to the sound of men and women shouting and grunting. He stared at the doors and took a deep breath before pushing it open.

The king took a few steps forward before stopping, his entire body freezing from head to toe. Eyes were swinging towards him from every corner of the room. He recognized many faces from the trial. The Keep’s barracks were technically open to all members of the Alliance, but time and time again it seemed only the highest ranking members of the nobility managed to claim the space. His throat closed, vision swimming as his heart continued to beat faster and faster. Anduin’s shoulders slumped and he ran a gloved hand over his face, beads of sweat already clinging to his brow.

The sound of Jarod’s metal hands clapping together almost made him flinch.

“HOI! Everybody clear out, His Majesty needs this room,” the blacksmith shouted, swinging his long arms as he walked directly across the room, through the middle of several impromptu sparring lines. “Get going! You don’t have to leave but you can’t practice here, OUT!”

Angry faces and glowering expressions turned their way. Anduin’s entire face flushed. He stood stock-still, hands clenched by his sides, as he watched the throng of warriors and paladins clear out. When the room was empty, he swallowed and gave Jarod a pointed glance.

“That wasn’t necessary,” Anduin said.

Jarod shrugged. It was his turn to flush, a rare sight. “...Ah, sorry for being forward, there. What use is being the king if you can’t take advantage of having your own barracks all to yourself once in a while?”

Anduin’s face softened as he self-consciously ran a hand over the back of his neck, lifting his ponytail. “No, please don’t apologize. I appreciate it.”

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, assessing the empty room with its high vaulted ceilings and rows of straw stuffed training dummies. He limped towards the nearest one, drawing his sword in one smooth, practiced motion. He steadied his feet, squaring them from years of well-honed practice, shifting his fingers so that his sore hands gripped the hilt. His gaze centered on the beaten, worn burlap pulled taut around the straw body. Someone had used ink to smear tusks and a mouth across the lower half of the lump that was intended to be a head. Baine’s kind face rose, unbidden, for a fraction of a second, bathed in Mulgore’s vibrant sunlight.

Anduin lunged forward and swung, his muscles locking as he brought the dulled edge of the practice sword down on the sack with a tight swish. It hit the ribs of the sack with a satisfying _thud_ that reverberated through the empty room, along with the sound of his brutal exhale. He drew in a breath, reset his stance, and lunged again, this time leading with the opposite foot and landing the blow on the opposite side. Again and again he repeated the strikes, until he executed them with the swift evenness of a gnomish machine. He switched the routine, taking two steps, then adding a duck and a spin. Over and over his blade landed on all the well-worn critical points in the burlap enemy. The enemy that no longer existed, according to a page of ink he had signed by his own hand. Instead of the mis-matched eyes, he saw Wrathion’s young face, easy-going, taunting as the young dragon ducked and weaved with an agility and strength Anduin did not think he himself would ever be capable of claiming again, as they practiced together to break in his new wooden leg in Tong’s gardens...

“Easy,” Jarod said, deflecting Anduin’s stumbling blow. The king fell over, hitting the ground hard, before pushing himself to his shaking feet again. “It’s only your first day back, Your Majesty.”

Back and forth, they circled a painted cross in one portion of the floor, Anduin twirling and spinning his lightweight blade in his aching hands. The pain streaked from his hips down through his knee and into his left heel, but he pushed through it, sweat dripping down his skin and catching in every seam of the strange leather armor. The manacle on his wrist burned as the cold Light in his bones awakened, coursing through him with a quiet ferocity. He ignored it, concentrating on getting ahead of Jarod’s footwork and keeping the edge of his blade always within the boundaries of his line of sight. 

When they were through, every joint in Anduin’s body was throbbing. Adrenaline was coursing through him that only abated when he was limping back with Jarod, every third step staggering, his boot heel sliding across the stone tiles. He refused Jarod’s offer to lend his shoulder for support and instead used the wall to keep himself upright as he walked.

“About your new armor…” Jarod said, lingering at the doorway to the armory, where Anduin began to peel off the leather set piece by piece. “...It doesn’t have to be a plate set. You can always wear cloth. Or some combination of the two. You don’t have to force yourself to maintain, if it’s difficult for you. It might even be more appropriate, once Your Majesty has been reinstated as a priest.”

Anduin looked up, his bangs clinging to his filthy sweat-stained brow, cheeks red from both the effort and the heat.

“The Champions of the Alliance expect their king to wear plate,” Anduin said, wearily, shucking off the leather chest piece.

Jarod bit his lip and nodded, moving to collect the leather pieces that Anduin discarded.

“I will gain the weight back,” Anduin stared at the helm mounted on the iron as he felt a fresh bolt of pain seize his left knee. Sweat clung to his skin as he buttoned up the front of his white shirt, fingers trembling. The shaking made it difficult to thread the ivory buttons through the small eyeholes. “And I will work towards rebuilding the muscles. I did it once before, I will do it again.”

The king returned to his quarters, where he drew a fresh, hot bath. Large dark bruises were already blooming from both Jarod’s training sword and stumbling and falling on the floor. He knew then that he would be stiff and sore the following day. He drained what potions he had left in his cabinet and smoothed his blond hair back, tying it into a tight bun at the base of his neck, pinning his bangs back. He shaved again, wincing as the blade carved fresh razor burn at a sensitive spot underneath his jaw. Dabbing at the blood, he swung on his crutches back into the bedroom, where he cleaned and donned the prosthesis before dressing in a rich tunic and breeches, slipping on gold trimmed leather boots.

Anduin made his way into the parlor, where he set out two wine glasses, pouring one for himself. He nursed the dark red liquid while he waited on the balcony, leaning against the balustrade to keep his weight from his sore legs, watching the sun descend towards the horizon over the harbor. The hot, salted summer breeze pushed at his skin, tugging at the billowing sleeves of his tunic. He imagined he could hear the seagulls crying as they searched for scraps of food on the boardwalk.

A knock on the door soon after the seventh bell drew the king back into his parlor and to the doors.

“Genn,” Anduin said with a warm smile. “Welcome.”

With a single step, the Gilnean king stepped inside the warmth of the parlor, bending forward in a deferential bow as he let the doors close behind him.

“Good evening, Your Majesty,” the old worgen said, eyes tired and cautious as he removed his leather great coat. “I appreciate your generous invitation to dinner.”

“Of course,” Anduin reached out to take the garment, hanging it on the coat rack beside the doors. “I thought a little light dinner conversation would repair some of the tension between us. How about a glass of wine, to start with?”

Genn’s broad shoulders relaxed, wrinkles deepening at the corners of his eyes as the corners of his mouth twitched upwards. “They don’t refer to you as a great diplomat for nothing, I suppose.”

Byron served dinner: hearty chunks of well-salted pork loin served with a cool summer potato salad and lemon-drizzled green beans. Dessert was a pie baked with the first apples of the season, drenched in a cinnamon-caramel filling. Anduin tore chunks of roasted pig meat from the fat-laden bone on his plate, chewing each bite until his jaw hurt and washing it down with a generous swig of wine. Genn, for once, was falling behind.

“You ought to slow down, Your Majesty,” Genn remarked, coolly, raising a white brow as he watched. “You’ll likely choke at that pace.”

“Ah, well, I’m just trying to get used to eating like a warrior again,” Anduin said with a smile and a shrug. “I need to restore some energy, anyways, I had a long workout today.”

“Oh, did you?”

“Yes,” Anduin speared two slices of mayonnaise and onion drenched potato, licking them from his fork. “I’ve finally managed to carve out time to return to my sword training. I’m not quite as out of shape as I’d dreaded.”

“Excellent,” Genn grunted, taking a fresh slice of pork. “That leads me into something else, I was wondering when would be the right time to broach the subject with you. The next item on the House of Noble’s docket is a tournament.”

Anduin’s fork hit his plate with a loud clatter. “A tournament?”

“Yes, preferably before the weather turns cold in a month or so, to enable safe travel for visitors from all over the Eastern Kingdoms,” Genn wiped red meat juice from the corner of his mouth, moustache twitching. “Your father participated in something when he was courting noblewomen. It’s how he found your mother’s family: her brother bested him in a jousting match that ended in a sword fight and he rode all the way to Westfall seeking a rematch. It’s a good way for men to show off their strength and to forge new relationships. It wouldn’t be a terrible way to regain some respect from the other members of the nobility, either, if you manage to knock them around a bit. That was your father’s preferred way of keeping them in line, by reminding them of his physical strength every now and then.”

Anduin gave a nod, swallowing, face growing pale. “A tournament. Yes, of course. I’ll begin the arrangements straight away. I’ll be traveling for the rest of the month, so I may ask you to check in on one or two items, to make sure they get done while I’m gone.”

“Good. I’ll be more than happy to help.”

The king remained silent, staring down at his plate, gloved fingers tilting his fork back and forth while Genn chewed.

“I think I’ve reached a decision,” Anduin said. “I would like to approach Lady Alice Wishcock to formally announce a courtship.”

This drew a bit of Genn’s attention. He raised his brows. “Wishcock? You’re sure?”

Anduin nodded. “Yes. If she and her family are amiable, I expect to make a proposal before winter.”

Genn shrugged. “I suppose that would be acceptable. I take it things didn’t work out between you and Tess?”

Anduin’s hand paused, fork hovering above his plate.

“No,” the king said, his voice dipping so low he was barely audible over the sound of the wind rustling through the windows. “I thought I would spare her from the stress of such a proposition.”

Genn chuckled. “Oh, is that all? I can’t say I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that she was giving you difficulty. If you change your mind, perhaps I could step in and start taking a firmer hand with her again.”

Anduin’s voice snapped back, quick and sharp. “That is not necessary. Please leave her be.”

Genn’s fork and knife stopped mid-cut. He raised a brow at the king, questioning the abrupt change in tone. Anduin’s face was hot and he busied himself with draining what remained of his wine.

“How are you preparing your gardens for the autumn weather?” Anduin smoothly diverted to a new topic as he poured himself another glass.

Genn did not stay long after dinner. Anduin followed the Gilnean king as he collected his coat, trailing after him like he was a kite on a string.

“I’m going to cut my hair off tomorrow,” Anduin said, folding his arms and leaning his shoulder against the doorframe to shift the weight from his leg.

Genn gave a grunt of approval. 

“An excellent idea. I’m sure the lady’s family will appreciate you cleaning yourself up for them.”

Then he paused, his face softening as a warm smile crossed his grizzled face, blue eyes shining with affection. 

“I really am proud of how far you’ve come over these past few months. You’ve really pulled yourself together. I have no doubt that you’ll soon be wearing that armor again with a stiff spine and drawing the admiration from every noble in the kingdom.”

Anduin felt his face grow white. He swayed against the doorframe, against the ache that struck his lower back, his knee threatening to give out beneath him.

“Thank you,” he said, softly. “Good night, Genn.”

“Have a good night, Anduin. And good luck with your proposal.”

When the sound of the Gilnean king's boots had disappeared from the hall, Anduin limped to the dining table, leaning against the surface as he found his wine glass and finished what was left. He used his fingers to tear off a chunk of pork and shove it into his mouth, licking juices from his hand. He chewed until his jaw ached then spat everything out. He wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin and let it fall over his plate.

Hands running up and down the front of his shirt, Anduin loosened the cuffs and his collar, tugging the knot of the cravat and unwinding the long strips of fabric from his neck. He let the train drop, staggering over to the open window. He placed his hands flat on the sill, fresh air pushing loose wisps of blond hair from his pale face.

In one smooth motion, Anduin pushed himself onto the ledge, swinging his right leg over the side. For a brief moment he straddled the windowsill, chest heaving as he sucked in a heavy gulp of air and shuddered as he let it out of his lungs. With a push of his left foot, let himself go.

Anduin fell only a meter or so before a burst of gold light blinded him. His entire body buckled as it crashed into something not quite solid, the impact sending waves of pain rocking through his entire body as it bounced before stopping. His mind reeled, but soon the shock and unimaginable rage settled in when he realized what had happened. The king thrashed, but his heavy limbs failed to find purchase on the threads of enchanted netting cradling his body against the side of the tower. He opened his mouth to scream but nothing came out. Staring down at the darkening ground, he struggled for a few moments to regain control of his breathing, trying to make out familiar shapes in the blurred gardens far below, then finally let himself succumb to unconsciousness.

* * *

The first thing Anduin realized, as he began to rise from the crushing, black fog of sleep, was that he could not move. Dull panic seized him, pushing his eyelids open. He found himself staring at a familiar ceiling, framed by the tall wooden posts of his bed. He groaned and tried again, finding that his initial panic was overblown. He could, in fact, move some: he could wriggle his fingers and his toes, the heels of his palms and his foot twitched back and forth, but it was like trying to push through a thick sludge. They felt sore, pins and needles pricking all the way through his limbs, which was good. Pain was a sign that the nerves were still working. 

The king turned his head, pushing the side of one face into the thick pillow and found he was not alone. Shaw was sitting in a simple wooden chair pulled up next to his bedside, bent over, head bowed, cradling a large mug of coffee he held between his knees. He seemed to be dozing, somehow.

Anduin’s attempts at movement roused him. Shaw lifted his head, strands of his red hair falling across his furrowed brow. He looked more tired than the king had ever seen him, bruised circles curving beneath his green eyes.

Shaw said nothing at first. He took a long sip of coffee.

“The net had a minor paralysis enchantment worked into it,” the Spymaster explained, finally. “It will take a few more hours to completely wear off, I expect.”

Anduin turned his head, fixing his enraged, bulging glare straight ahead at the ceiling.

“How did you know?” Anduin’s voice cracked with every consonant, his pitch wavering.

Shaw studied his coffee cup for quite a while, slowly turning it around in his palms.

“I noticed that you seemed to have an increasing fixation on the windows,” he said, at last. “I couldn't be sure, of course, but I had the nets put up anyway because I thought it far better to be safe than sorry.”

He paused, glancing up, green eyes flickering in the candlelight.

“And I cannot say that I am sorry.”

“Well done,” the king refused to meet the spymaster’s gaze, his voice stronger but now shaking with anger. “I’m sure that reporting the king’s latest grievous sin to the House of Nobles will work in your favor when you ask for a raise this year.”

Shaw took a long, calm drink of coffee, a gesture that allowed enough time for regret to sink into Anduin’s chest. When he was through, the spymaster leaned forward, letting his elbows rest on top of his knees.

"No one knows what transpired tonight apart from myself and the other SI:7 agent I have assigned to watch over you," Shaw’s voice was as level as ever although the creases in his brow deepened. “It’s just the two of us, now, working in shifts. And absolutely nothing is being recorded. We will take this incident with us to our graves, unless Your Majesty should choose to tell someone else.”

“Oh, well, then,” Anduin bit back, struggling to clench his fists. “Thank you, Spymaster, for actually managing to do your job with discretion for once.”

Shaw remained silent, turning his head to look towards the window beside the bed’s headboard. He did not appear to be all that bothered by the comment, which made the king feel even worse for saying it. After a moment, Anduin stopped struggling and lay still once again, chest heaving as each breath went in and out as a gasp, still glowering at the ceiling. He contemplated attempting some kind of shadow spell, smite spell, anything, even if it meant the runes on the shackle would melt his wrist off.

“Perhaps you should consider speaking with someone,” Shaw said, after a while. “It is not my area of expertise, nor is it really my place, but as Stormwind’s _Spymaster_ \--”

Anduin grimaced at the sarcastic but gentle inflection in Shaw’s voice.

“--the king’s safety is one of my many concerns. And if he is a danger to himself, that, then, does fall within my purview.”

"And who would you suggest I talk to?" Anduin asked, his voice dripping with anger. "My physician? He reports everything directly to both the House of Nobles and to the Church now. Every gruesome detail pertaining to the king’s health is apparently now an urgent matter of great importance for the entirety of Stormwind, not just SI:7."

Anduin attempted to sit up again, but couldn’t push his shoulders more than a bit from the pillows. He let his head drop backwards, slamming it back into the pillow with his frustration before squeezing his eyes shut.

"...As I said, it's not my area of expertise, Your Majesty," Shaw’s careful voice came from the darkness. "But would you consider at least finding a pet or something to care for?”

Anduin cracked open an eye.

“Perhaps a cat?"

The king opened both eyes, saying nothing, swiveling his gaze to glare upward with his jaw clenched.

"Only a suggestion," Shaw said, wearily, giving an uncharacteristic shrug of his shoulders that betrayed his discomfort. "Perhaps it would help."

The tension drained from Anduin’s face and he resumed staring at his bed canopy, exhausted. The spymaster rose to his feet, clearing his throat.

“Dawn is only a few hours away. I will arrive at the Cathedral in your place and explain that I have ordered you confined to your quarters while SI:7 investigates a potential assasination attempt. That should buy you a day to recover.”

“I’m not sure if the archbishop will believe you,” Anduin muttered.

Shaw drained the rest of the coffee, tapping the empty ceramic against the seam of his pant thigh, staring thoughtfully at the portrait on the opposite wall.

“That will be my problem, not yours,” the spymaster said, finally. He reached into his pocket and took out a small vial of caramel colored potion, leaving it on the nightstand table. “When you regain use of your arms, be sure to drink this. My advice would be to spend the day resting. Try and get some sleep.”

Shaw did not move to leave. He set the coffee cup down on the nightstand next to the vial. He cleared his throat.

“...Feel free to drop by my office in Old Town at your leisure,” he ventured. “Should you ever need to talk.”

Anduin refused to say anything, or even dignify the spymaster's words with a glance. He let his seemingly infinite, aimless anger boil in his chest as he stared at the ceiling. After a few moments, Shaw turned and walked away, boots quiet across the carpet. With the sound of the parlor doors shutting, Anduin was finally able to curl his fingers into clenched fists that matched the tension in his jaw.

* * *

The king sat silently on the edge of the bank, his left pant leg rolled up to the knee with his bare foot dangling into the cool lake water. Tess kicked off her own boots and joined him, sitting an arm's length away. He noticed her sharp eyes curiously drift over the jagged scars that marred the skin on his shin. She passed him the flask first, which he accepted and drank from.

"I tried to take my own life the other day."

Out of the corner of his eye, Anduin noticed that Tess had gone very still, like a statue. She did not even blink for a minute or two. Anduin held onto the flask, rolling its contents around. Ripples spread across the lake from their legs breaking the surface, distorting the reflection of the willow branches and the round full moon. 

“I’m glad you didn’t succeed,” Tess said, after a while. “How are your hands?”

Anduin turned his gloves around, curling and uncurling his fingers towards the palms. “Sore. But, he’s started to heal them again, after.”

“Good. I did bring the bandages, just in case.”

Tess picked at her fingers for a moment before bringing them to her hair, tugging the band out of her braid. She let her dark hair fall in a curtain over one shoulder and combed the bent waves with her fingers as she also looked out over the horizon. After a moment, Anduin did the same, pulling the leather cord from his hair, letting the loose, long blond locks spill over his shoulders. He kicked his foot, watching the moon's reflection in the surface blacken from the agitation.

"I'm leaving tomorrow to go on a diplomatic tour of the Alliance’s capital cities," he said.

"...Are you certain you're up for that?"

Anduin screwed the cap back on the flask and held it out. Tess did not take it right away. Her heavy brows were knitted together with a combination of incredulity and concern.

"Does it matter if I am or not?" Anduin asked.

Tess held her hand out and the king passed the flask into her hand. She untwisted the cap with quick motions and took her first long drink of the night.

"I think traveling might do me some good," Anduin continued, swishing his foot forward and backward in the water. He couldn’t tell if what he was feeling was happiness or merely the absence of any negative emotions. "I can't remember the last time I stepped out of Stormwind. Probably on a visit to Boralus, back during the war."

Tess seemed angry, but didn't speak for a while.

"Maybe you should go," she said, at last. "And consider not coming back."

Anduin hummed.

"I am not joking," Tess raised her voice. "For Light's sake, Anduin, wouldn't it be better to simply _leave_?"

Anduin sighed, stretching his leg and flexing his toes under the water.

"...You know I can't do that."

After a moment, he spoke, again:

"Even if I could, I don't have anywhere to go."

Tess jerked her head to the side, as if nodding to some voyeur standing beyond the edge of the brush. "What about _him_ , though? Surely he still must be out there?"

"I don't know," Anduin said, after a while. "...I’m not quite sure if he would even be happy to see me again."

They continued to watch the ripples travel across the surface of the lake in a peaceful, empty silence. Tess kept Anduin company until he was ready to leave, graciously pretending to be too occupied with studying the wind in the willow boughs to notice the silent tears rolling down his face.

* * *

The great dining hall in Ironforge was bursting with activity, the cavernous halls filled with the shouts of revelers and the music of a dwarven minstrel band playing loudly in the corner. The Council of the Three Hammers had arranged for a gargantuan feast to honor the High King’s visit from Stormwind and dwarves had come from all over the mountains to partake in it. It sounded like at any given time there were no less than three fights occurring simultaneously. The air was filled with the savory, charcoal-roasted scent of the thirteen wild boars roasting on spits in the center of the room.

King Anduin sat in a place of honor at the long wooden table at the top of the hall, wrapped in a thick wool cloak with a brown and grey wolf’s fur collar, his back to one of the many great fireplaces roaring along the walls. The city’s volcanic heat was a welcome reprieve after a long day of participating in ceremonies, most of which took place on a chilly cliffside that bore some kind of sacred stone shrine or ancient carving. Even in late summer, the cold winds whipped without mercy through the crags of Dun Morogh, pushing right through Anduin’s thick layers. Now, resting his legs and cradling a mug of hot mulled wine in his hands, he would have been content to fall asleep against the carved backrest of his wooden seat under different circumstances.

“What did you say your name was again?” Muradin Bronzebeard squinted over the top of his stein, his face beet-red and flushed from both the heat and the alcohol coursing through him.

“Brother William Joseph Paxton. I am a servant of the Holy Light, from Stormwind City.”

The priest shifted in his seat. His own wine goblet remained mostly neglected on the table, at Anduin’s right-hand side.

“ _Paxton_ , eh?” As intoxicated as Muradin was, Falstad Wildhammer had started drinking three hours earlier than him. The blue-tattooed dome of his head shined with a fresh sheen of sweat, his braided red beard flecked with bits of boar meat. “Don’t know many Paxtons from Stormwind.”

“My family is originally from Lordaeron, Thane Wildhammer.” Brother Paxton ran a finger across the inside of the collar of his robe, attempting to pull it away from his neck. “We migrated south, during the Third War, for obvious reasons.”

Falstad grunted, his nostrils flaring. His and Muradin’s sharp eyes were still boring into the human priest as he tried to work through the oversized chunk of boar flank on his plate.

“I still find this to be more than a bit unusual.” Moira Thaurissan shot what was probably her hundredth concerned glance in Anduin’s direction. The dwarven queen held the largest chair at the head of the long table, her waist-length copper brown hair tumbling down her shoulders in gentle waves, one hand pinching the base of a goblet filled with the same warm wine that Anduin held in his. “You follow His Majesty _everywhere_ , you say?”

“No.” Brother Paxton’s lips pursed behind the grease-stained cloth napkin he raised to hide his annoyance. “As I explained earlier, I must accompany the king only in any situation where he might be in danger of succumbing to his more depraved instincts.”

Falstad snorted around a drink of his beer, foam spraying across the table, before starting to cough. Muradin reached over and slammed his hefty fist repeatedly against the dwarf’s back, hastening the return of air to his lungs, and the coughing turned to laughter. 

“Oh, aye,” Muradin said as he worked, giving the king a drunken wink. “If there’s one thing the late Varian Wrynn’s son is known for, it’s his tendency towards nefarious activities. Light bless your soul, laddie.”

This comment only renewed Falstad’s laughter. The Brother Paxton did not seem amused, and the look he gave Anduin made the king’s stomach turn over. Moira’s eyes narrowed, her fingers rolling a thick, golden right around and around the pointer finger of her left hand, its ruby stone glinting in the dim firelight when it passed by the top of her knuckle. Her face remained perfectly serious as Falstad recovered, dark amber eyes flickering to the manacle around Anduin’s right wrist.

“I suppose Stormwind has its own code of conduct that its priests must abide by,” she acquiesced, her voice polite. “I’m sure we must have one or two commandments chiseled on the walls of our temples that would make you lot raise a brow. But, how do you mean that Anduin is no longer allowed to commune with the Holy Light itself? I would think that if the king is having trouble keeping to your human sacraments, the last thing you would want to do is sever his connection to something that could provide guidance and quiet the mind.”

“In Stormwind, we believe that a vessel must be pure before he can channel the Light,” Brother Paxton explained, looking over at Anduin from down the length of his nose. “To commune with such a holy force while in a state of mortal sin is nothing short of blasphemy, particularly if you use it to heal or bless others while in that corrupted state.”

“I see.” Moira made a curt, high-pitched _humphing_ noise in the back of her throat. “I hope you manage to appease the members of your human church soon, Anduin. Many at the Netherlight Temple missed seeing you at the midsummer mass.”

Anduin smiled graciously at the dwarven priestess from across the table. “Thank you, Moira. I am trying my best to have faith.”

Moira returned the smile, though it did not quite reach her worried eyes. She turned her head to stare into the fireplace, the hot, yellow light illuminating the slope of her profile. 

“It’s got me thinking, since you’ve come all this way already,” Moira began slowly, turning her wine goblet around in her hand. “Tomorrow I could take His Majesty over to Blackrock Mountain.”

Anduin felt his heart leap into his throat. He quickly took a drink of wine to give himself a moment to smooth the shocked look on his face. Moira lifted her chin a fraction higher, continuing to speak into the fire. 

“My clan has a temple devoted to the Light deep within the lower caverns. It’s where most of our followers who live in the mountain usually go to worship. It’s said to be built atop a sacred holy site where thirteen ancient dwarven saints are buried, after they died together as the result of a terrible cave-in, when the volcano was more active. Many priests used to make pilgrimages there before the War of the Three Hammers.”

Brother Paxton steepled his fingers as he squinted at her, contemplating this. Anduin’s heart continued to pound as he stared down at his mostly untouched plate of food.

“If your schedule permits it, of course.” A flush rose to Moira’s face. “I don’t think you’ve had a chance to properly socialize with the Dark Iron clan since the end of the war. And perhaps being within proximity of the mountain’s holy earthen flows would give you strength for your spiritual journey.”

“Thank you, Moira,” Anduin said, once he trusted himself to speak. “That sounds wonderful. I will see if I can make time for it tomorrow.”

After dinner, large dishes of fruit pies and bowls of sweet whipped cream were passed around the dining hall and bottles of brandy flowed freely. Anduin continued to nurse the mulled wine with Moira, listening to her recount Prince Dagran’s recent studies. The young Dark Iron prince had also recently decided to devote himself to priesthood.

Dwarven feasts were known to carry on well into the early morning hours, but Anduin excused himself prematurely when Brother Paxton deemed that they should retire. In the visitor’s suite that they shared, Anduin knelt down to prepare a fire in the small iron stove that would keep the well-insulated rock wall room warm while they slept.

“We will not go to Blackrock Mountain,” Brother Paxton said from the small washroom where he was changing into his sleep robes.

Anduin’s hands slipped for a moment, but he managed to scrape the match and light the charcoal within the stove, shutting the grate over the fire. He held his hands out to enjoy the direct warmth for a moment on his palms and cold fingers.

“I think it would be good for me,” Anduin replied. “And Moira wasn’t wrong about my negligence with paying homage to the Dark Iron clan.”

“Tomorrow, we have already arranged to have your confession heard by a priest here in Ironforge.” Brother Paxton splashed his face and then headed to the bed in the room that was farthest from the stove. “There are specific sacred texts in the holy library here that the archbishop wishes for you to mediate with, then we will attend afternoon mass at the upper temple here. There will be no time to take a gryphon to Blackrock.”

“Yes, brother.”

Anduin rose to his feet and doused the candles, then dressed for rest, tucking his prosthesis with his cane to the side of his own bed. He crawled beneath the layers of quilts and blankets, the sheets already warm from the heated stones Moira’s servants had slipped in at the base of the mattress, and tried to fall asleep while nursing his shamefully dark disappointment.

* * *

Far under the frost-bitten grounds of northern Dun Morogh, Anduin sat on the edge of a padded table, hands laced together in his lap, wearing a pair of light shorts. His coat and pants were folded neatly beside him with his cane, the front of his fine cotton shirt unbuttoned and the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He let his left knee bounce, foot tapping on the tile floor to try and keep it from growing too cold in the chilly, subterranean workshop. From the side of the room, Brother Paxton sat in a metal folding chair, quietly reading from a book he had brought, glancing up every now and then.

The king had quickly given up on trying to hide his curious, surreptitious glances around the room and unabashedly turned and craned his neck to take in the almost countless sights and sounds while he waited for Prince Erazmin to finish his assessment. The chamber contained a jungle of stainless steel vacuum pipes hooked up to loud pumps. From the various vacuum chambers, green numbered meters displaying current vacuum levels. A forest of banana clips dangling from red and black wires hung from metal racks on the wall next to jeweled drawers filled with tiny circuit components such as op-amps and resistors. Circuit meters hooked up to various sensors Anduin struggled to comprehend. A smile tugged at his lips as he thought of what Wrathion would do if he were in the room. He could almost picture the way the dragon would stroll from meter to gauge to oscilloscope, hands clasped behind his back as he leaned over to examine something that happened to catch his eye.

“No doubt these pistons in the knee joint have seen better days.” Prince Erazmin’s brisk voice interrupted the king’s train of thought. The mechagnome perched on a stool at a gigantic workbench, goggles casting a soothing blue glow across the surface where Anduin’s prosthesis lay. “I think some of them have accumulated too much foreign material, I suspect to the point where it’s interfering with your gait. But I agree with you: the socket is certainly your biggest problem, and we should make sure to address that first.”

A small whirring noise emitted from the corners of his goggles as the lenses retracted, laying flush with the frames once again. Erazmin picked up the leg and loaded it onto a small cart, adding what looked like pads of some kind of stiff foam along with a sharp precision knife and a jar filled with a strange adhesive.

“Once we have that fitting more comfortably, I’d like to deep-clean a few of these components and recalibrate the microchip that handles the bend sensor. And perhaps we should completely replace the foot, while you’re here, since you seem to be putting a far more wear on it than we’d initially calculated for.”

“I’ll be certain to take better care of it in the future,” the king said, threading and rethreading his fingers between his clasped hands as he watched Erazmin push the cart over. “I’m sorry to waste your materials.”

“No waste at all, King Anduin,” Erazmin scoffed, handing him a sock to pull over the limb. “Bodies change all the time, metal less so. How do you think we became so efficient at recycling?”

“Still, I greatly appreciate that you are taking the time out of your schedule to do this,” Anduin said, watching with curiosity as Erazmin carefully slotted a test pad into the inside of the socket.

“I’m always happy to have an excuse to hole up in a workshop, Your Majesty.” Erazmin passed the prosthesis to Anduin with a smirk, his brows arcing high above his goggles as he tipped his chin in the direction of the priest seated in the corner. “Far more preferable than pretending to enjoy a stuffy business dinner, talking to people you’d rather not spend time with, wouldn’t you agree?”

Anduin smiled, and tipped his chin down, bangs falling over the sides of his face to show his red blushed ears, as he moved to slide the socket over his thigh. Brother Paxton flipped a page, oblivious to their conversation.

“Yes, Your Highness, I couldn’t agree more.”

* * *

The sky above the treelines was iron gray, drizzling. Anduin sat beneath a tarp drawn across two trees at the edge of the forest line, huddled in the folds of his wool cloak beside Brother Paxton, whose teeth were audibly clattering as he muttered dark prayers under his breath. They, like the rest of his traveling party, had been waiting at the border between Ashenvale and Darkshore for hours, staring down the ranks of many hostile kaldorei sentinels. The king’s mind was exhausted from churning through the endless ways this scenario could end, most of which were some kind of violent confrontation, for which they, the humans, were woefully under-prepared. The night elves were armed to the teeth; Anduin could see the glint of their warglaives even in the gray light. On top of the threat of worsening rain, it was now getting dark. If the kaldorei messenger did not return soon, they would have to start making proper camp in a less muddy spot back under the boughs of Ashenvale’s green and orchid trees.

At last, there was movement on the other side of the river. Anduin winced as he rose to his feet, knee shaking from the damp that seemed like it had seeped into just about every joint. He picked up his cane and limped towards the ornate wooden bridge, illuminated by lanterns, where a rider on a sleek, golden striped dawnsaber approached.

“ _Ishnu-alah_ ,” Anduin greeted with a bow.

The sentinel did not return the gesture. Her eyes bore down on him from above her tall frame seated in her mount’s leather saddle, the moon’s white glow illuminating the curtain of light rain falling down between them. The dawnsaber’s hot breath sent clouds of condensation into the air.

“I bring a message from High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind. She has no need for tribute from the Alliance and no desire to show hospitality to the Little Lion King on lands he did not reclaim.”

Her eyes darkened, fangs showing as she dipped her chin, twin violet ears arcing high into the air from her mane of black hair. A rumble ran through the dawnsaber’s body and Anduin’s grip on the handle of his cane tightened as his face burned.

“Go, now, Anduin Wrynn. Do not let the kaldorei find you treading through our groves in the night.”

Anduin’s face burned in the cool, misted air. The sentinel made no sign of moving, so the king was forced to turn his back to the fangs of the growling dawnsaber. All eyes were on him as he made his way back to the camp, where his own party looked up to him expectantly.

“Your Majesty?” The captain of their meager guard asked.

“As all of you may have already guessed by now, we can’t stay here tonight,” Anduin said, forcing a calm smile and a cheerful tone. “We will pack up and head south, along the coast. We should be able to barter for shelter at the Horde encampment on the Zoram Strand. From there, we should be able to contact the Exodar to ask for aid, or perhaps they’ll have a ship we can use to travel directly to Azuremyst.”

The king’s smile dropped as soon as everyone delved into their individual tasks that would disassemble the makeshift camp. Rain hissed on the iron manacle on his wrist as he said a quick prayer to the Light that they would be successful.

* * *

The thrumming of the Exodar’s power core resonated through both the strange misted air and Anduin’s aching bones as he descended down the curved spiral ramp, leading his bedraggled traveling party into the heart of the draenei capital city. His heart lifted at the familiar sight of the fuchsia swirls of energy spiraling up towards the high vaulted ceilings. Strands of soft pink lights amongst colorful tapestries hung over the mechanical carved walls and illuminated the way to the Seat of the Naaru. The air smelled of the balsamic- lemon incense wafting in thin, wispy clouds from the braziers of blue fire that dotted the walls and entryways.

“Good fortune finds you, Your Majesty.” The draenei attendant who had arrived to greet them gave a deep bow, which Anduin returned. “We received word of your troubles in Ashenvale, our apologies for the delay in sending aid. Please, if you would come with me, I will show you to your rooms right away so that you might rest before your audience with the Prophet. He wishes to place no undue burden on you for formalities this morning.”

Anduin hesitated. His intent had been to go straight to Velen; the idea of praying before the waters of the Exodar’s holy fountains had been the one singular thought that pushed him through the arduous final leg of their journey. The Ashenvale rains hadn’t yet left his limbs, and after a quick, unfortunate glance at his rumpled reflection, distorted in the golden-pink surface of a crystal spear pillar, he relented.

The relief the king felt from sliding into the heated, in-ground bath in the small visitor’s room solidified this decision. He fell asleep while sitting up, soaking in the fragrance of the sweet vanilla bath salts up to his neck, blond hair spilling over a satin pillow that supported his neck and head at the edge. It felt too soon when an impatient knock from Brother Paxton at the door roused him.

They spent the rest of the day napping in their quarters and devouring trays of spiced grilled fish and roasted vegetables brought in by the Exodar’s cooks. The next morning, Anduin had to admit that he did, in fact, feel more prepared to face his old mentor with the road's dust scrubbed from both his skin and untangled hair and dressed in a freshly washed tunic, waistcoat and jacket.

Brother Paxton accompanied him into the Vault of Lights, stepping cautiously around the lavender runes humming in the tiled floors that Anduin walked over with ease, enjoying the familiar tingle of energy that coursed through him. The arcane light streaked up the grooves in the wood of his cane. White-golden light streamed down from the soft sun crystals that grew from the ceiling. The shields that lined the stairs and entryways were draped with black mourning tapestries, small candle-lit shrines to the draenei’s lost loved ones lining the many platforms that used to display holographic images of their enemies.

The Prophet’s tall, towering form could be seen from well across the room as he descended down the main staircase to meet them on the central platform. Velen seemed smaller than Andin remembered, without the great red and gold crests he wore on his shoulders, donning a simple dark robe that made his long beard seem all the more vibrant. On his face, he still wore lines of dark blue paint that signified his state of grief over the loss of a loved one. His lumbering walk on his thick hooves was slow and his spine more bent. Up close, his eyes matched the weariness in his gait, but the sight of the young king lifted his shoulders.

“ _Archenon poros_ , Anduin,” he murmured, clasping both of the king’s hands.

“ _Archenon poros_ , Teacher,” Anduin returned, feeling a strange lump in his throat at the gesture. “It’s so good to see you.”

“You are unwell,” Velen’s white eyebrows knitted as he looked the young human up and down, not releasing his small hands. “Why did you not tell me this? I would have sent for an elekk to carry you.”

“I’m alright.” Anduin found he did not need to try to return a genuine smile. “Just being within these halls again has given me so much strength.”

The king’s words of reassurance only seemed to increase the lines in the elder draenei’s ridged forehead. Velen seemed distracted, like his sentences were coming slower than usual.

“Come, join me in my tent,” the Prophet said, drawing his arm with his long dark sleeve around Anduin’s shoulders, grasping them firmly. “You’ve had a long journey, you should at least sit down.”

Brother Paxton trailed after them, coughing slightly.

“Velen, this is Brother Paxton, a priest of the Church of the Holy Light in Stormwind,” Anduin introduced as they ascended the central staircase. “My chaperone.”

Velen looked over his shoulder, as if seeing the other man for the first time. He gave a hollow grunt in greeting, seeming distracted.

“Welcome, holy brother,” the Prophet murmured.

With a long arm reaching over, Velen lifted the deep purple flap to the tented structure erected in a far, quiet corner overlooking the Vault of Lights, stepping aside so that Anduin could step through. His other hand came up, blocking Brother Paxton’s attempt to follow.

“Forgive me, I did not intend to give the impression that my invitation extends to you as well,” Velen said. “This space may only be inhabited by those who have been baptised by the sacred fonts within the Pools of Light.”

“He is my chaperone, Velen,” Anduin tried to explain. “It means he must accompany me, as a mentor, to ensure that I don’t stray from the path of the Light.”

The elder draenei looked between them; his expression hadn’t changed.

“That will not be necessary, as I will be with you,” Velen decided, his voice confident and spoken with finality. “I have spent far longer keeping to the Light’s sacraments than any human priest, living or dead. And this is a holy space; the Light itself resides within.”

Brother Paxton hesitated. He exchanged a look with Anduin, but there was nothing either of them could say that wouldn’t be taken as a grievous insult to the draenei’s way of worship. The king gave a helpless shrug.

“Very well, I will allow it,” Brother Paxton said, stepping back and folding his hands against the front of his robe. He glanced around, looking for somewhere to sit, which was how Anduin left him when he turned his back to enter the dark warmth of the tent.

The Prophet’s tent was a high-ceiled enclosure, just big enough to comfortably hold a low tea table with pillows beside a crystal campfire just big enough for a tea kettle. On one end, the entire wall contained an altar with a shrine to Velen’s patron naaru, formerly O’ros but now Saa’ra. Small tea candles and glowing crystals were interspersed with the thin sticks of incense. On the other end was a bedroll, where the Prophet sometimes slept when he spent days on end in prayer or flipping through the pages of an ancient text. Anduin knew from experience that if he were to sit long enough in meditation, he would be able to hear the whispered chimes of the naaru drifting in through some boundary between the holy space that the Prophet had cultivated within the fabric walls and the endless shimmering expanse where the Light existed, the realm that he did not fully understand.

Anduin took a moment to bow before the altar on his knees, forehead touching the floor as he murmured two small prayers, first to Saa’ra, then to O’ros, before scooting over to sit on one of the thick, supportive pillows arranged around the small stone table. He slid his cane underneath the table, laying the handle to rest beside him.

“It brings me so much joy to see you here at this table again,” Velen declared as he began to prepare a pot of tea. “I wish I had seen it done sooner.”

“Thank you, Velen, ” Anduin murmured, shifting to find a comfortable position. “Please, how have you been?”

Velen released a long sigh, tendrils rustling amongst his white beard. “My soul has been somewhat unburdened these past several months. I wish I could say the darkness has lifted completely, but my people have finally begun to heal. I know that closing the Exodar off to the world for a time after the conclusion of the war was not a popular decision with the rest of the Alliance, but, Anduin, the Common language cannot express the good it did for us. It meant more than a human could ever understand for us to have a proper time dedicated to mourning the unimaginable losses we have suffered to the Burning Legion, in our own way, according to our own customs.”

While Velen poured the tea, Anduin’s eyes slid over to the altar, taking a glance at a portrait of Rakeesh, draped in a strip of blood red fabric. The cloth was embroidered with draenei prayers, stitched by the Prophet’s own hand. 

“I am glad to hear it.”

Velen led them both in prayers over the tea and they began to drink. After a moment, Velen sighed and crawled over to a small trunk. He rooted around and then produced a large tin, removing the lid as he set it down beside the thick white candle in the middle of the table. Anduin peered inside and laughed. Velen returned his own weary smile, but it at last reached his eyes as the king reached inside and took out a thin buttered cookie, half dipped in chocolate.

“Months of isolation hasn’t killed your craving for Azerothian sugar, I see,” Anduin teased gently as he cupped his hand to catch the crumbs before biting a portion from the edge.

“Oh, we made sure our stores were well packed before we sealed the entrances,” Velen chuckled in his deep, rasping laugh. He dunked his own chocolate-coated biscuit into his cup of tea before popping the entire thing into his mouth. “It is unfortunate, though, that you suffered such an ordeal during this time. It shook my faith, somewhat, to hear of the news from Stormwind when we emerged. When I first read the report, I truly doubted for a while if I had made the right decision.”

“Stormwind also closed itself off to the outside world when I was first arrested,” Anduin said, gently. “I doubt you would have been able to do anything, even if the Exodar was operating under normal circumstances.”

“Still, I wondered, such timing…we have a saying...” Velen sighed and shook his head, cutting himself off as he dusted off his fingers. “Bah, enough. You did not come to hear an old draenei prattle on about his woes. I am trying to put the tendency towards melancholy behind me. Will you allow me to take a look at what ails you?”

Anduin shrugged. “Yes, but, truly, you need not be concerned. It’s nothing out of the ordinary, just the usual aches and pains. Prince Erazmin kindly assisted me with one or two things when I visited the gnomes, but I’m still recovering. And the mists on the isle, of course...”

Velen did not seem to be listening as he crawled around the table to sit beside the king, kneeling on his hooves as he took both of Anduin's hands in his. They seemed small enveloped in the draenei's long, wrinkled fingers. After a moment, Anduin felt a familiar warmth seep in from the large palms, sweeping up his arms and into his body. The Light, channeled through the great Prophet, swept through him, and for a moment he felt utterly weightless, at peace, as if he had slipped into a different reality where he was not a king burdened with the weight of his crown and Velen was not an ancient leader who had just come out of a terrible, long tunnel of mourning.

"I bear the burden of responsibility for this," Velen murmured, his fingers now almost painfully tight as they pressed into the backs of Anduin’s hands. "Your injuries were so severe you would not have lived another hour on Azeroth had I not allowed the Light to work on your body in great and horrific ways, ways that no mortal has survived before. Not even the Lightforged, who undertake their trials willingly and with much preparation, endure such torment.”

Velen’s face was frightening. Anduin found he had no words. He could only sit and watch, mouth open, as the Prophet continued to speak, the Light coursing between them in great waves. This was not a priest’s normal healing blessing; somehow they had slipped into something else, something deeper. Velen was in a trance and he had pulled Anduin down into that space with him.

“It was not divine grace that saved you. It was the terrible sin of a fearful old draenei who made you endure what you did. Please understand, the terror of losing you in such a way...it was unthinkable, and you were so young, so precious to us..."

Velen stopped, his breath catching. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, Anduin was shocked to find tears ready to fall.

"...I...had seen a vision. I saw a terrible premonition of your death driving your father to unthinkable rage and madness. Varian Wrynn would come out the other end of that despair once again a broken man and Pandaria would suffer from his warpath. His resulting actions would rend the Great Alliance apart."

Still clinging to Velen's hands, Anduin could truly see what the draenei had, years ago. He saw the Vale of Eternal Blossoms not just burning, but utterly drenched in rivers of fly-infested gore, the waves of Pandaria’s shores thick with corpses and the foam dark red with blood. Tortured, twisted bodies of Horde prisoners of war strung up along Lion's Landing.

"Your father's final legacy is that of a truly great man. Azeroth will remember him as a just ruler, but it is only because his son was the ballast that kept Lo'gosh, that vicious, brutal wolf, ever at bay. I regret that I did not realize sooner how much of a burden it was for a young prince to carry. Please forgive me. Anduin."

"Velen!" Anduin gasped, struggling to see through the glow. The Light was no longer soothing, it was now burning, painful, but he continued to speak through it. “There are days that are certainly far, far more difficult than others, but I do not regret the life that you’ve given me.”

A million thoughts and sensations fluttered through him, each beat as quick and brief as the flapping of a butterfly’s wing. In the space between, he felt memories, sensations. He spoke as if there were an entity within him, separate yet ingrained in the fabric of his very being, that now guided the words that came from his tongue.

“I’ve done so much in this time that I gained,” Anduin heard himself say. “I’ve seen so many beautiful lands on Azeroth. I’ve met so many people. I’ve tasted so many mornings, both wonderful and terrible. But it was all a gift, Velen. Not a sin.”

The Light finally abated, the final whispers of the naaru fading, leaving them engulfed in sudden shadow. The king and the Prophet both sat, gasping, clutching each other’s hands while they blinked and their eyes adjusted once again to the dim candlelight.

Anduin’s mouth dropped open as he let out a howl of pain that filled every corner of the tent, doubling over his hand. The iron manacle was burning as if he had held it in a fire, the inescapable heat searing the flesh beneath around his wrist. It had been doing so since they had entered the trance, the sensation only just registering once he had fallen out of it.

Velen lunged forward, gripping Anduin’s arm with both hands, pulling it forward with a kind of frantic strength that could have easily snapped the bone in half by accident had the king resisted too much. The draenei pushed Anduin's sleeve back and bent forward, white-violet light spilling across their laps as his eyes widened upon examining the shackle. The runes were dull, the heat already fading, but the tent was still filled with the lingering scent of human skin burning.

"Anduin, _what is this?_ "

* * *

The king stood stock-still, hands clasped behind his back, legs spread like he was addressing a troop of soldiers before battle. He stood on the bottom-most floor of the Vault of Lights, staring upward towards the top-most platform where the Prophet's tent stood. His mouth was utterly dry, though he was desperate to swallow. All around him, an ever-increasing crowd of curious draenei gathered to investigate the commotion. 

Velen's voice resounded quite loudly from the top, alternating between Common and Old Draenei, as he shouted an endless stream of words at the top of his lungs. In the few spaces when Velen seemingly paused to take a breath, the pleading voice of Brother Paxton could just barely be made out.

“...this is a means of penance clearly laid out within the bounds of the old scriptures, as laid out..."

" _THIS IS BLASPHEMY_ ," Velen shouted, one long finger jabbing like a knife towards the high-vaulted crystalline ceilings. " _Real_ blasphemy! It’s....it’s…an _insult_ to our most fundamental beliefs! This is _sacrilege_! SACRILEGE THAT IS NOT EVEN WHISPERED IN THE DARKEST POSSIBILITIES OF THE VOID--"

" _PROPHET!_ PROPHET, THE KINDS OF SINS that the king committed were an affront to every sacrament that the Church of the Holy Light holds sacred,” Paxton did his best to match Velen’s volume and vigor. “What he got away with by allowance of his state-given powers under the symbol of the crown was an _atrocity_...”

"Cutting off a being from channeling the Light’s grace… _that_ is an unspeakable atrocity!" Velen bellowed. “What’s more, _twisting_ it to harm them should they even attempt to seek comfort or guidance in the blessed act of prayer _I HAVE NEVER IN ALL MY YEARS ENCOUNTERED EVEN A **DEMON** WHO WOULD THINK TO COMMIT SUCH CRUELTY._”

The draenei to Anduin’s right muttered something under his breath, shaking his head, pastel-blue tendrils swaying across his breast. His companion murmured while nodding in agreement, the light from the crystals catching on the gold ornaments attached to his forehead crest. Anduin’s face was hot from the curious stares he was now also getting from the participants in the crowd.

“Your Majesty?”

Anduin turned. He found most of his kingsguard and the members of his traveling party had also wandered over. The captain of the guard was pointedly looking at him for some kind of order.

“...Perhaps we should go up there,” Anduin suggested, quietly.

The guard shook his head and pointed. When Anduin turned around, he saw Brother Paxton storming down the stairs, red-faced, blond hair mussed and shaking, Velen looming behind him like a persistent black cloud as his great hooves thundered upon the metal stairs.

“King Wrynn is willingly submitting to penance,” the human priest explained, over his shoulder as he quickened his steps towards where the kingsguard were assembled. “This is all under the guidance of the Church of the Holy Light, as the archbishop would be the first to tell you...”

Velen’s people parted, making room for him at the base of the stairs where he came to an abrupt stop. Every part of him was perfectly still, except for his long tendrils, which were trembling from the tremors of his heaving chest.

“Do you take me for a fool?” Velen’s voice was frighteningly quiet. “An _idiot_ , perhaps, as you humans would put it in your Common tongue. _Ashjrakamas._ Do you truly mean to stand here underneath the Vault of Lights in front of all my people and the Light Herself and _insult my intelligence to my very face_ , as if I cannot see _precisely what it is that you are doing_?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” Brother Paxton replied, his voice cold, seemingly emboldened by the presence of a line of humans, all carrying Stormwind’s swords and shields, at his back. “We have been nothing but frank with you, honored Prophet. And, regardless, I have no real say in the matter. If you have objections to the way the priests of Stormwind are upholding our sacraments to the Holy Light, you will have to formally submit them in writing to the archbishop.”

Velen, the gentle draenei Prophet, sneered. His lip curled back to reveal rows of tall, yellowing teeth and two incredibly sharp incisors. The Vindicators were responding to the anger from their leader, now, and beginning to draw their weapons, pointing them at the human soldiers who responded by drawing their own. Anduin’s heart felt as if it would burst right from his chest from the raw fear he felt as he entertained a vision of his kingsguard's heads speared on draenei pikes.

“This is _intolerable_ ,” the ancient draenei growled, a deep rumble emerging from the depths of his chest. “I will not stand to have my people give both their lives and their labor in service of an alliance that allows such blatant _abuse_ to fester in the name of...”

“Velen.”

The Prophet’s head snapped up, finally, to stare at Anduin. The full fury in his face was now directed at the king, who kept his hands clasped behind his back to hide how they were shaking.

“Please,” Anduin said, his voice steady. “I beg you, lay this to rest, for now. As your former student, I beg you. Please.”

Velen’s expression faltered. There was a brief look of resignation followed by concern, then fury. He sucked in a breath through his nose as he studied Anduin, who tried his best to return a serene, steady expression. He did not trust himself in that moment to attempt a smile. At last, the Prophet nodded and gestured to his guard. Crystals glinted as one by one, the Vindicators lowered their spears.

Brother Paxton yanked a handkerchief out of his pocket and ran it over his face, sweeping it around to the back of his neck. He turned his back to the draenei and faced the king, his face taut with anger. “We are leaving, Your Majesty. Now.”

Anduin gave one last, reassuring nod towards Velen, who did not respond and merely continued to glare, angrily at the humans backs as they retreated to their rooms.

* * *

Anduin slid out over his coat on the grass next to his cane with a groan, swinging his left knee over his right. He peeled back his gloves and tossed them over his head, letting his hands rest on his chest. Studying the moonlight through the branches of the willow boughs, he let his foot freely bounce in the air while Tess settled in beside him, stripping off what looked like dusty traveling leathers. Tess wordlessly held out a whiskey flask she produced from her satchel, which Anduin accepted. He propped himself up on his side for a moment to take a long drink.

“Your trip was truly that terrible?” Tess asked, smirking, as she watched him double down on the sip.

“...it could have been worse,” Anduin admitted, relinquishing his hold on the flask. “What have you been doing to keep yourself occupied, Your Highness?”

Tess looked out over the dark water, letting the small silver liquor container dangle from one hand draped over her knee. "I also decided to take a trip."

"Anywhere exciting?"

"Exciting for me," Tess said. "I suppose. Westfall. I went to visit my...girlfriend."

Tess spoke the word as if she were trying it out for the first time, like it was a new sensation on her tongue.

"That's wonderful, Tess," Anduin said, once again lying flat on his back, looking up to the trees. "Who is she?"

After a long pause, Tess told him.

Anduin shot straight up, eyes blown wide as he stared. The princess had turned to glance at him in the dark. Her expression was a cross between a grimace and a look of fear. After a moment of gaping, mouth opening and closing from several attempts to start a sentence, Anduin sank back down, the back of his head making a soft thumping sound as it hit the dirt.

"How..." Anduin took a small breath. "...how did you two, er...?"

"Dalaran," Tess replied, gesturing vaguely towards the lake. "The Underbelly, when the Legion was...well, you remember..."

"I see," Anduin nodded. "Yes...that makes sense. You two would have been running in the same circles, wouldn't you?"

"That's right."

Anduin lifted his head, shifting so that one hand rested between his sore hip and the hard, uneven ground beneath him. "...Congratulations, Tess. Really. I’m honestly just happy to hear that someone is...finding a way to…It's none of my business, anyways."

"None of your _business_?" Tess said, her voice turning unusually high-pitched. "She is the leader of the greatest anti-monarchy movement in the Eastern Kingdoms, Anduin. You are the _king_."

Anduin covered his face with his hand, pressing his thumb and his first two fingers into his eyes. "...I'm just so _tired_ , Tess. The next time you’re down there, in fact, if you would, inform the Defias Brotherhood that if they want to take me and put me out of my misery, they can have me. I would thank them for it."

Tess puffed out her cheeks for a moment before pressing her lips to the rim of the flask, tipping it back to take a generous swig of whiskey. She passed it back to Anduin, who accepted another drink.

After a while spent listening to the distant conversations of geese, Anduin asked: "How do you two manage it?"

"I regularly ride out to see her, once a month. She was who I was living with before I accepted the assignment from SI:7 and moved back in with my parents. That's where I spend most of my time, when I can't bear being at home, surveillance or not. I wouldn't dare risk bringing her into the city."

Anduin nodded. "That seems wise."

After a moment, they looked at each other. An uncontrollable grin spread across Anduin's face. They both burst out laughing.

"I wouldn't recommend it," Anduin managed to gasp around the last shudders of laughter, wiping tears from his eyes. "Speaking from personal experience, I...I don't think it's very safe. For you or for her."

"Oh, thank you," Tess choked, trying to take another drink from the flask. "Thank you very much, Your Majesty. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind next time I am struck by the impulse to commit treason under the King of Gilneas’ roof."

Their laughter eventually died, leaving Tess gasping for air and Anduin occasionally breaking out into a fresh burst of quiet chortling. He eventually tried to steady himself with a heavy sigh.

“I’ve been indulging in a fantasy, lately, that helps make the days a little more tolerable,” he admitted. “About abdicating the throne.”

“That sounds quite liberating,” Tess’ voice was light, as if there were nothing out of the ordinary about this. “Why don’t you?”

Anduin turned his shackled wrist in the air, studying the faint traces of the unreadable runes in the moonlight.

“Fear, mostly,” he said. “For the kingdom. There’s no way of knowing for certain who would ascend to the Lion’s Seat in my absence. There are several noble families on more or less equal footing. The fight itself may turn bloody, and it wouldn’t be the nobility who would suffer the most in the resulting conflict.”

Tess let out a hum in agreement, studying the grass.

“...But I’m ashamed to say I’m mostly afraid for myself,” Anduin clenched his fingers into a fist and shifted to curl it beneath the space between the small of his back and the ground he lay upon, as if he could pretend for a moment that the shackle didn’t exist if he could not see it. “The House of Nobles only allows me to walk free because as king, I serve a useful political function to them.”

“The nobility and the church do not seem to realize that their displays of public punishment are being perceived as cruelty," Tess said. "And the majority of the Alliance still holds you in high regard. You are as beloved as a son in both Ironforge and the Exodar. Not to mention Kul Tiras.”

Anduin nodded. “I see you’ve clearly given this some thought.”

Tess shifted in place, lifting up her skirt to slip her dagger from its holster around her thigh, and stabbed it into the earth. 

“I am a Shadow of the Uncrowned,” she said, studying the hilt where it stuck up in the air. “It is my duty to have a pulse on the thoughts of the people of the Eastern Kingdoms. It would certainly make our job far easier if troublesome monarchs simply up and left their thrones of their own accord.”

“Even if I abdicated, I wouldn’t be allowed to just leave,” Anduin reasoned, more to himself than to Tess. “If they didn’t throw me back in the Stockades to rot in a cell for the rest of my life, they would find some other way to hold me in Stormwind.”

“Perhaps they would keep you chained to a monk’s desk in the Cathedral,” Tess suggested, her voice teasing. “Forcing you to do all kinds of tedious tasks, such as transcribing books of scripture by hand.”

Anduin groaned, covering his face. The picture Tess painted seemed frighteningly real. 

“Then they could trot me out during formal visits whenever Moira or Velen needed reassurance that I was being treated well.”

“No doubt,” Tess agreed, her eyes dark. 

She had taken out her knife and was digging a small hole in the ground by her crossed ankles.

“I have been thinking about this,” Tess admitted. "A great deal, in fact. There’s something I’ve been wanting to speak to you about. A proposal, if you would."

Anduin waved a hand aloft in the air, twisting and flicking it on his wrist in a commanding gesture. "You have the king's ear, Princess Greymane. Please speak your mind freely."

Tess began rummaging in her rucksack.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I literally did just get back from Westfall when I sent you that note asking to meet. And I fear I won’t have the nerve to do this on an empty stomach.”

Tess pulled out a piece of fruit. She offered it to Anduin, round and glossy in her palm, as she raised her brows in inquiry.

"Apple?"

* * *

In the hours of night so late it could almost be considered early morning, the King of Stormwind’s bed lay empty. Although the day would be hot, the breeze that swept through his quarters bore the tell-tale chill of summer’s end. The king himself was awake and pacing, moving from parlor to bedroom, limping on his aching leg, bouncing from standing object to standing object to stabilize his gait in the absence of his cane, which he stubbornly left at his desk. His entire body was wracked with pain. His mind was clouded with too many twisting and squeezing his frantic thoughts. Guilt. Most certainly there was guilt. Fear, as well. Uncertainty. Anduin stopped to lean against the mantle, pressing the palm of one hand into the sharp marble while the other uselessly massaged his breastbone. He tried to pray, to find some kind of clarity, but it was difficult to find purchase on the words, slipping from the forefront of his hazy mind.

Resigning himself to the fact that there would be no relief that evening, even in prayer, Anduin seized hold of the bottle that bore the remainder of the wine from dinner and collapsed on a pillow in front of the fireplace, flipping open the last of his mother’s journals.

_  
I made a terrible fool of myself today in front of the entire court. A party was held to honor the new crown prince, and of course I was obliged to attend to bring him, seeing as he is incapable of bringing himself anywhere, much less understanding what a celebration is. His Highness, of course, patiently endured being man-handled by all kinds of nobles who passed him around. I’ve never seen so many adults who seemed as if they had never once held a baby before in their lives. Their own children had to have been handed off to nursemaids and governesses the second after taking their first breaths. I understand how these things go in Stormwind, and while it did not exactly bring me comfort to see my son passed around from noble stranger to noble stranger like a sack of flour, I endured it with the grace that is expected of the queen. Until I spotted him cradled in the arms of the young Count Ridgewell._

_I cannot even recount this event privately in writing without feeling like a complete and utter fool. In that moment, I was struck by a horrible feeling, like a Titan had pressed its gargantuan finger over my weak, fluttering heart in an attempt to suffocate me. A wave of nausea unlike any other I had ever felt in my life, supernatural in its terror, roiled through my bones, nearly squeezing consciousness from me. As if in a waking nightmare, I watched myself from afar as I began to scream at the top of my lungs like a possessed harpy. The poor startled count practically threw Anduin into my arms, at which point I clutched the babe to my breast and bolted from the room._

_I came to my senses in the Keep’s main courtyard, having wedged myself beneath the boughs of a tall, gnarly bush, hidden out of sight. Anduin did not seem particularly distressed by his hysterical mother. In fact, he seemed grateful to be away from his own party and in the fresh air, calmly chewing on strands of my hair that he had wound around his small fist. As I calmed myself down, he kept himself occupied by watching a caterpillar crawl through the shadows of a branch next to our heads._

_It didn’t take long for Varian to find us, my hiding spot useless as every guard had seen the queen regent scurry into the garden like a frightened dog. I was still somewhat in shock and bracing myself for his reaction, unable to come up with any remotely reasonable excuse to justify my behavior. I knew for sure it was some kind of premonition that I could not divine meaning from, even now the specifics slip through my fingers like water as I try to recall, and I had no language to explain this to my husband._

_To my great relief, Varian acted as if there was nothing unusual about a king finding his wife cowering beneath a bush, as if this were what queens simply did every now and then. He wordlessly took Anduin from me to hold while I crawled out from underneath and did my best to brush dirt from my skirt and hair. He made an offer to accompany him on a private ride out into Elwynn, which I gladly accepted. We snuck over to the stables and saddled our horses, secured Anduin in a sling to Varian’s chest, and managed to escape more or less unnoticed._

_We found a spot not too far beyond the shadow of Stormwind, just a small patch in the shade by the mountain’s waterfall. We lay opposite each other with Anduin on the grass between us and watched him attempt to puzzle out his new surroundings with his large, serious eyes. Varian and I said not a word to each other the entire time, but were content to take turns letting our son grasp our fingers and lay gentle kisses on his soft head._

_I regret that my son will never know the feeling of having two parents who love each other, truly love each other, instead of two monarchs trying their best to endure each other’s company as they march through their daily routines. Some people will mistake that for love; perhaps we will even succeed in fooling our kingdom with our pageantry. I can only hope that Anduin will not have to endure the same fate, unable to find refuge even in his own bed from the chains of Stormwind’s tiresome political games...  
_

  
Stormwind’s streets were unbearably crowded, people rushing through them in an inescapable current. Anduin stood amongst them in his plain dark tunic and breeches, the hood of his cloak drawn down, exposing his blond hair. No one seemed to notice that the king stood amongst them, their shouting, angry faces directed in unison towards Cathedral Square. Anduin brushed his way past, trying to escape, but walking over the cobblestones was like stepping through a bog, each step sucking him backwards.

The crowd was shouting at a woman who stood in a simple brown peasant skirt, wearing a maroon cotton vest embroidered with white roses over her simple button blouse. The waves of her waist-length blonde hair were half pulled back into a comb at the crown of her head. Anduin froze when she turned her head to the side, so he could clearly see her profile, a familiar nose and gray-blue eyes.

Something hit him in the side of his face, the force spinning him around. When he looked up, he was standing alone, at the other end of the street. All eyes were now looking at him, angry, enraged. He stumbled as he turned to run, but stopped when he realized the path out of the square was now blocked. 

His mother stood before him, blood coating the entire left side of her face, the thick stream of red and black gore leaking down from her crushed skull blocking out her blue eye. Her hands rose to tighten on his shoulders, nails digging into his bony flesh, her jaw dropping as she deafened him with her scream.

“GET OUT.”

Anduin awoke, drenched in sweat, gasping. He was confused, unsure of where he was. He realized he had fallen asleep on the floor before the fireplace once again, a half-finished glass of wine beside the carpet and his mother’s journal spread open across a pillow.

Within his bones, the remnants of the Divine Bell's quite, cold fire abated.

* * *

Shaw sat at his desk, reclined back in his chair, hands fiddling with a short length of thick sailing rope. He was tying practice knots up and down the length, over and over, tugging them loose only to tie them again. He did this with his eyes mostly trained on the surface of his desk, where four identical envelopes lay, side by side in a neat line, each bearing a blue wax seal stamped with the crest of House Wrynn. The night air pressed at the windows, the room within lit only by a few candles.

The High King sat in a chair before him, one of the old quilts Shaw kept in his office wrapped around his shoulders. In his scarred, bruised hands was a plain white ceramic mug of hot black coffee. He was sitting more or less perfectly straight, the way he would if he were at the Lion’s Seat.

“You’re sure about this?” Shaw asked.

Anduin nodded, pressing the rim of the mug to his lips.

“What about the rest of the factions?” Shaw pressed, tugging another box knot free. “The Lightforged and the ren’dorei?”

“My hope is that Velen will be able to persuade Turalyon,” Anduin mused, tapping one finger on the rim of his mug. “I would be prepared, though, just in case he cannot. Alleria will encourage the ren’dorei to follow the High Exarch’s lead, though some of them will have their own alliances. I am not sure how Magister Umbric will react, for one.”

Shaw hummed to signal his agreement. He set the rope down, running a hand across his mustache.

“How soon do you think you can have them delivered?” the king asked.

“That depends,” Shaw said, picking up his own mug of coffee. “How soon would you like them delivered?”

“No sooner than at least the end of this month,” Anduin decided. “Tess needs some time.”

“Of that, I have no doubt.”

A small noise and a thump startled Anduin, almost rocking him up out of his seat. Shaw merely smiled, though, and looked down to greet the orange cat that had leapt up into the spymaster’s lap, curious about what kind of liquid the ceramic mug contained.

“It will be done, Your Majesty,” Shaw said, reaching down to rub his knuckle across the underside of the cat’s soft chin.

* * *

Time wasn’t really a concept that existed within the endless expanse of the Twisting Nether, but for the sake of everyone’s collective sanity, the priests of the Conclave all agreed to pretend that it did. So there was a nighttime in the Netherlight Temple that looked very much like the daytime, except for the number of people who were up and milling about.

Archbishop Alonsus Faol found that he slept less and less the farther his existence stretched from his deathday. He was content to spend the majority of his nights tucked away in the main hall of the Temple, tending to his studies at one of the many wooden desks that sat near the stained glass windows that overlooked the beautiful, iridescent tendrils of the Nether. He reasoned that it would be a good idea for somebody to mind the main chambers, for though the Temple certainly saw far fewer pilgrims than it did during the time of the Burning Legion, it wasn’t so infrequent that they were surprised.

His reasoning was vindicated once again on one such night, when the familiar resonant thrumming sound of someone stepping through the main portal echoed across the hall. Faol carefully marked his current page with a bookmark and strode off to greet them, stretching to realign the vertebrae of his spine with a series of satisfying pops and crunches. A hunched figure was making his way down the carpeted isle past the rows of gently trickling fountains. 

The visitor wore a simple brown cloak with the hood pulled low over his face, underneath a plain dark jerkin over a cream cotton tunic with long sleeves, simple breeches and scuffed brown boots that went up to his knees. As he limped, he supported himself with what looked at first to be a simple, tall wooden walking stick in his gloved hands. Upon closer examination, Faol recognized it to actually be a novice’s staff.

“Greetings, traveler,” Faol said, warmly, as he approached, taking care to keep his distance. By now he was almost certain that anyone who knew how to reach the Netherlight Temple was also well aware of the Forsaken who led its Conclave, but it also didn’t hurt to presume. “What brings you to our humble place of worship?”

“I am looking for a priest to hear my confession,” the man said, his voice so quiet that it barely caused an echo in the airy chamber. Faol could now see that the reason why the man had not drawn his hood was because his face was wrapped in layers of gauze bandages, with gaps for his eyes, nose, and mouth.

“You’ve come to the right place,” Faol said with a crooked smile. He was pleasantly surprised to see a shaky smile returned from beneath the bandages. “I can assist you straight away, unless you’d like some time to reflect…”

“I’ve spent quite a bit of time today reflecting elsewhere,” the visitor replied in the same low tone. “I am ready.”

Faol led the visitor into one of the smaller side chambers, where there were rows of pews arranged before an organic forest of blessed crystals from the Exodar that sang and hummed quietly at different frequencies, depending on the concentration of Light energy that happened to be flowing past the outside of the Temple at the time. He opened the door to one side of the confessional booth, the visitor leaning his staff to rest on the wall outside before carefully easing himself down onto the bench. Faol took his seat in the middle compartment, drawing up the divider to reveal the privacy screen.

“Bless me, Father, for I will sin. It has been seventeen hours since my last confession, and these are and will be my sins:

Faol furrowed his brows at the sound of the visitor’s breath hitching. He heard them draw in a long, shaky breath before they began to speak.

“I am in love with a man, a dragon, a brilliant Aspect of the Earth.” Their voice was louder than it had been in the main chamber and grew more steady the longer the man went on. “He is a guardian of our sleeping Titan mother and a vanquisher of the oldest gods that still dare to torment her children. He is my companion, my confidant, my lover, and despite the laws of my fathers and all that the seat of the government on which I serve stands for, I have never stopped holding him as such in my heart.” 

The visitor fell silent. Faol felt as if his mind were racing faster than it had in quite some time. He ran his rotting fingers across the remains of his crooked jaw.

“That is not in itself a sin,” Faol said, carefully. “I can absolve you of this weight from your conscience, if that is what you seek, but the sacraments you have broken would be considered archaic and obsolete by my Conclave. Normally, I would break protocol and offer you sanctuary here, but...I am not quite sure if we can manage that...in your particular case...”

The man on the other side of the screen interrupted him.

“I know, Father, I would never ask the Conclave to put themselves at such a risk. But I can no longer continue to live in this way, I cannot spend the rest of my years bending beneath a yoke to uphold the illusion of a pious man who does not exist.”

The man on the other side of the screen shuddered, his next breath strained. When he next spoke, his speech was calm.

“It is because of my love for him that I am willing to commit a grievous sin.”

Faol squinted at the screen, steepling his bony fingers and resting his chin upon them as he leaned forward.

“Proceed.”

“I am breaking the vows I made on the day of my coronation, to both the kingdom of Stormwind and to the Church of the Holy Light. I am abandoning my throne. I am renouncing the position entrusted to me by my forebears and my own father. I have done what I can to ensure the safety of my people, but I do not and cannot know for certain what is to come in the wake of my departure. I am washing my hands of this city, built on its workers’ blood and bones, and I am leaving its fate to providence.”

Faol waited until he could once again hear only the sound of the visitor’s breathing.

“...is that all?” the Forsaken priest asked, tentatively.

“...that is all.” 

It had been some time since Faol himself had needed to exhale with his long dead and dried lungs, but he went through the motion all the same.

“I absolve you of your sins, my son.”

Another long pause stretched between them, filling the narrow, dark space within the booth. Faol ran his thin hands down the front of his cassock, smoothing out the wrinkles as best he could. He tugged on his gold and blue stole, ensuring that the ends were perfectly level where they draped down from his protruding shoulders.

“...Father, what...what must I do to repent?” the voice came forth more impatient, almost commanding.

Faol considered. The remains of his long, blond hair spilling to one side of his face as his narrow, golden eyes rolled upward to study the shadows that lay across the confessional booth’s low wooden ceiling.

“I bid you to devote the rest of your life to helping the children of Azeroth,” the Forsaken priest said. “Go forth and live as you would, as an unbound priest of the cloth, doing as little harm and as much good as you are able. May you forever walk with the Light, my dear son.”

Through the shadow of the screen, Faol’s dim eyes could just make out the silhouette of the man as he bowed forward, his forehead knocking into the wall of the booth with a faint _thump_ , his next shuddering breath making his shoulders tremble. But when he spoke, his quiet voice was controlled and calm.

“Thank you, Father.”

After a few moments, the visitor collected his staff and Faol escorted him back to the Temple’s portal. In the Sanctuary of Light, Saa’ra began to sing her mystical midnight hymns. Once the portal had hummed, signaling a departure, the Forsaken priest returned to his desk, removed the ribbon bookmark, and resumed his solitary reading. As a true priest devoted to the Holy Light, Alonsus Faol never brought what he heard on that night outside of the confessional walls.


	7. In the Yellow Wood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To everyone who skipped the content-warning heavy chapters: welcome back! As promised, the chapter starts with a summary for catch up. I'd put it here but turns out it's a little too long to fit in the AO3 Notes box.
> 
> **Additional content warnings & tags added for this chapter include hunting, animal death and animal birth.**
> 
> A huge thank you to [Laeviss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laeviss/pseuds/Laeviss) for beta reading and editing.
> 
> And thank you for reading <3

**Summary for Chapter 5: The Scarlet King’s Trial**

  * Anduin Wrynn is imprisoned in isolation for months, first in a cell within the Stockades and then in his quarters in Stormwind Keep, while waiting for the House of Nobles to finish organizing the logistics of putting him on trial.
  * Mathias Shaw slips Anduin copies of the leaked documents revealing the specificity of his relationship with Wrathion in an attempt to prepare the king for the inquisition.
  * Anduin writes many letters attempting to negotiate with the noble houses. He sends one to his mother’s family in Westfall pleading for aid. These letters go unanswered.
  * Anduin is brought before the House of Nobles and attempts to defend himself from accusations of aiding and conspiring with the Black Dragonflight in a plot to infiltrate the monarchy with their draconic influence.
  * Wrathion is also brought to stand trial. After answering a number of intrusive questions about himself and the motivations of his dragonflight, Wrathion provides a single, simple answer to his reason for pursuing a relationship with the King of Stormwind: “I love him.”
  * The House of Nobles passes two motions: the first forbids any black dragon from entering the territory of Stormwind Kingdom at penalty of death, the second forbids any present or future king from entering a relationship with any member of any dragonflight.
  * Wrathion is taken away to an unknown holding cell.
  * Genn peacefully steps down from his position as King Regent.
  * Anduin is reinstated as High King.



**Summary for Chapter 6: Silver Dagger**

  * Anduin is stripped of his priesthood and made to submit to a harsh daily penance by the Archbishop of the Church of the Holy Light in an attempt to cure him of his "sinful" tendencies. He is bound with a shackle that burns him when he attempts to channel the Holy Light.
  * Shaw informs Anduin that Wrathion has been released.
  * Magni reports that Wrathion and Ebyssian have both abandoned Magni’s encampment in Silithus and their current location is unknown.
  * Anduin is visited in the Throne Room by his grandmother, Tabitha Ellerian, who informs him of a letter that was never delivered to him. Tabitha informs him that the family anticipated the letter would not be delivered and they placed a spell on the envelope to curse the person who prevented it from reaching his hands. Anduin learns that the curse inflicted a strange plague-like death upon the nobleman who had been assigned to intercept his mail while the king was held in captivity.
  * Tess Greymane invites Anduin to dinner with her family. Afterward, she takes him on a private walk, revealing to him that she is a high-ranking leader of the Uncrowned and the rogue who captured him in the barn on the night of his arrest. Tess also confindes that she is a lesbian and feels guilt that her father is putting the brunt of his scrutiny on him instead of on her. Tess and Anduin reconcile.
  * Anduin continues to visit Tess in private as a small escape from the stresses of his new routine and a friendship develops between them. They are reluctant to condemn each other to a loveless lavender marriage and deflect rumors that they are engaged in courtship.
  * Jaina visits Anduin in secret, attempting to convince him to run away, which Anduin declines. She suspects that Wrathion has withdrawn to Blackrock Mountain, but is not certain since she can't yet freely travel in the Eastern Kingdoms. Kul Tiras is still under attack by Stormwind’s navy, despite Anduin’s numerous orders to withdraw the fleet and reinstate Kul Tiras as an official part of the Alliance.
  * Anduin discovers that Genn is the one deliberately subverting his orders. They have a confrontation that ends in Genn snitching to the Archbishop that Anduin is resisting proper courtship, still holding out for Wrathion, and Anduin is punished by having his hands injured in a way that he cannot heal.
  * Tess discovers the injury and Anduin confides in her the daily punishment that the Church is exacting on him. Tess tries to convince him to fight back against the Church and her father. She is unsuccessful.
  * After a particularly long, hard day, Anduin attempts to commit suicide by jumping out the window. He is caught by enchanted nets that Shaw put up, having guessed that the king’s increased depression was putting him at such a risk.
  * Anduin recovers and leaves Stormwind to visit Ironforge, Darkshore, and the Exodar on diplomatic visits.
  * Upon returning to Stormwind, Anduin has another private conversation with Tess during which he reveals that he secretly fantasizes about abdicating the throne, but fears such an act would only embolden the House of Nobles.
  * Tess reveals that during Anduin’s absence, she made a trip to Westfall to visit her girlfriend, Vanessa VanCleef, leader of the Defias Brotherhood, the largest anti-monarchy group in the Eastern Kingdoms. Tess makes an unknown proposition to Anduin, which he accepts.
  * Anduin visits the Netherlight Temple, where Archbishop Alonsus Faol hears his confession: Anduin intends to go through with his plan to abdicate the throne. Faol absolves him of this sin.



* * *

## Chapter 7: In the Yellow Wood

Open wide, O earth, press not heavily on him. Be easy of approach, hail him with kindly aid. As with a robe a mother hides her son, so shroud this man, O earth.  
  
\- The Rigveda (English translation) 

  
I went with nothing  
But the thought you’d be there too  
  
\- Johnny Cash

* * *

Midnight was a rare hour for the Cathedral of Light to receive visitors, but on occasion, the pews in the nave were known to hold one or two sleepless souls who would pray before the tabernacle. Since the Fourth War, there were always one or two priests on hand to tend to the sick and wounded who inhabited the infirmary which was becoming less and less makeshift and more and more a permanent place of healing by the passing day. 

In one of the Cathedral’s requilaries, Mia Greymane sat in a plain wooden chair. At her feet was a woven wicker basket and in her apron-covered lap lay a tangle of simple cloth bandages. Her lips parted as she silently formed the words of some Gilnean folk song, her hands working with a silver-inked parchment vellum to enchant the strips of bandages with healing spells before tossing the end into the basket. The only sound in the room was the toe of her fine leather boot tapping against the stone tile and the gentle hum of the white-blue portal to her right elbow. She was dressed, for once, in simple pants and a plain cotton tunic, with most of her usual jewelry absent. Her sharp eyes flickered up towards the hallway, from which the sound of a priest’s footsteps could occasionally be heard, passing to and from the infirmary.

The portal hummed more urgently, drawing Mia’s gaze to the dark form materializing within. At the exact same time, fresh footsteps began to thunder up the hall. The Queen of Gilneas cursed, a strong Northern swear ripping from her throat, as she threw down the bandages and rose to her feet. As soon as the tall, hunched figure emerged from the mage-constructed tear to the Netherlight Temple, features obscured by the brown cloak with its hood drawn over his head, Mia grabbed the traveler’s broad shoulders and yanked him to the ground. He stumbled and fell to his knees, gloved hands splaying across the cool stone tiles, his wooden novice’s staff clattering beside him. Mia just barely managed to utter a quick _hush_ in warning before a shadow darkened the reliquary’s door.

“Is everything all right, Your Majesty?” Brother Paxton asked, raising one hand to rest on the doorframe. In his other, he carried a basket of healing potions.

“Oh, yes,” Mia replied, her voice curt, from her position kneeling at the prone man’s side. Her hands patted and rubbed his shoulders to hide the fact that she was also pressing him down, willing him to stay there. “Just another returning pilgrim overcome by their realization of the Light’s mysteries.”

Brother Paxton chuckled. “The Netherlight Temple does tend to have that effect on one’s soul. Peace be with you, brother.”

The figure on the ground bobbed his head, murmuring an unintelligible prayer to the floor as he raised one hand to give the sign of the Light on his forehead, chest, and shoulders, balancing on his two knees and palm. 

“Your Majesty, if you could join us in the surgery when you have a moment. We could use an extra hand or two in there.”

“Of course, Brother.”

Mia’s mouth shut, lips pressing into a thin, grim line. She retained her iron grip on the traveler’s shoulders until the priest’s shadow disappeared from the hallway, the sound of his footsteps dissipating into the inner recesses of the Cathedral.

Anduin lifted his hood-covered head, gray-blue eyes wide between the gaps in the wound cloth bandages that masked his features. Mia gave his shoulders a final, reassuring squeeze before rising to her feet, stooping to scoop up the small brass candle holder next to the wicker basket of cleansed bandages. Yellow light from the flickering white tapered candle followed her as she rushed over to the doorway and peered into the hall. Anduin picked up his staff and used it to help himself up, taking care to ensure that the cloak’s hood still covered his fair hair and that his tunic’s collar was still pulled high around his neck.

Mia gestured, making a series of sweeping waves. The king swiftly crossed the length of the floor, pausing when the queen motioned for him to stop. With two tight clicks of her shoes, she stepped into the hallway, wisps of gray hair swishing about her shoulders as she looked up, then down the dark stone walls. The crags in her tense face were cast in shadow by the oil lamps that flickered beneath the dark stained glass windows. Mia whistled, short and low, and Anduin followed her into the hall. Their footsteps echoed, far too loudly, down the marble walls as they rushed towards the rear of the Cathedral. Anduin’s staff clicked against the tile inbetween uneven steps from the heels of his boots.

Mia’s left hand closed around the thick brass handle of the rear door, her thumb slowly but surely pressing down against the latch. Her gold wedding rings glinted as they dipped in and out of the radius of the candlelight, cool night air rushing in as the door opened. She beckoned Anduin forward, ushering him outside. The moment Anduin’s left boot touched the ground of Cathedral Square, Mia’s daughter stepped from the shade, the light from the candle spilling over her small frame and casting a long shadow across the courtyard.

Tess was dressed in full dark leathers, her long brown hair tied back into a braid, wisps of which framed her pale, square face. Her dark eyes absorbed the light of the candle as she locked gaze with her mother, mouth pressed into a grim line. Tess reached into the leather satchel by her side and pulled out a pistol. Mia accepted the item and tucked it into a holster, neatly hidden beneath her apron. Tess beckoned Anduin to come by her side, looking over her shoulder, back into the candlelight for a moment. Mia dipped her head in a sure but resolved nod, which Tess returned. The Queen of Gilneas closed the cathedral door, enveloping the king and the princess in the night’s darkness.

Anduin fell into step by Tess’ side, using his staff to support himself as he walked, in much the same way as he had done with his cane. Tess drew her arm around his shoulder, draping something over them. Anduin felt his vision darken, as if an ink vial had spilled over the night-cooled streets of Stormwind. When he looked down, he realized he could only just barely see the outline of his boots and the hem of his cloak. Tess had gone almost invisible when he tried to glance over in her direction. Only her touch on his elbow reassured him that she was still there. He could not even hear her breathe, though his own frantic inhales were spurned by the frantic beating of his heart.

Together, they crossed the canals and made the journey into Old Town. It was not so late that the taverns would have shut their doors. Music could still be heard, muffled and interlaced with the sound of shouting and laughing, as they made their way down the cobblestones. Anduin’s heart continued to beat louder as they slowed their pace, approaching the gates to SI:7 headquarters. Two guards stood on either side of the archway, dressed in blue and brown leathers. One of them lifted a finger to the side of their nose, flicking as if scratching an itch. At this signal, Tess gave Anduin a gentle tap on his elbow and they passed through.

At the door to the large stone house beneath the acorn trees, Tess rapped her knuckles in a strange staccato beat. After a moment, the door opened and an SI:7 agent waved them in. Once over the threshold, Tess yanked down the blanketed invisibility spell and Anduin found he could see his gloves and boots clearly again. Inside, the headquarters was bustling with activity. Every lamp was lit, every dark surface covered with some kind of candle. The old, spiced smell of the walls was interlaced with gunpowder and sweat. Anduin kept his head low and his hood drawn as he followed the familiar path down the wood floor halls to Mathias Shaw’s office, stepping aside to allow agents passage as they carried armfuls of weapons and ammunition up from the stores in the basement.

Shaw was inside, standing at his desk, hands pressed flat to opposite sides of the top, red hair falling down over his brow as he studied a map of Stormwind City, marked with red and black lines and icons. His green eyes flickered up as Tess shut and bolted the door behind them. The orange cat observed them from a nook in the bookshelf, utterly still apart from her swishing tail.

“I take it all went well?” Shaw asked. His gaze looked past the king, to where Tess stood at the edge of the room.

Tess gave a single nod of her head. Shaw turned his gaze to Anduin and extended a hand, gesturing to the pack the king had slung across his shoulder. Anduin let his staff rest against the edge of the desk so that he could use both hands to remove it, passing the leather satchel over the desk. Shaw began to methodically unpack the contents and lay them out on the desk across the map.

“Anduin.”

The king turned around. Tess’ face looked grim but calm, like she had absorbed some of the peace he had gained while in the Temple. Her dark eyes were downcast towards his boots, the interlocked weaves of her long dark braid falling down across the front of her scuffed leather breastplate.

“Be careful,” she said, hand twitching where it rested on the hilt of her dagger. “I’ve done what I can to temper emotions, as much as could be expected. I made her promise to spare your life, but…”

Tess grimaced, shaking her head. Anduin waited, patiently, for her to continue. Her brown eyes caught tiny reflections of the candlelight as they flicked up.

“...I don’t think you can understand the depth of it, the decades of suffering and resentment. I cannot say for certain what she would do in the heat of the moment--”

“Then I’ll be sure not to put her in that position,” Anduin interrupted, gently, as he stepped forward. His fingers brushed Tess’ hand, still resting on her weapon. “Thank you, Tess, for everything. You’ve done enough.”

The uncertainty faded from Tess’ expression, settling into a steady resolve as she met his gaze. “There are perhaps one or two more things I must do. But, save your thanks. It was nothing, Your Majesty.”

Anduin slid his fingers beneath Tess’ palms and lifted her hands. He brushed his lips against the backs of her knuckles, laying a long kiss across one hand, then the other, before folding them between his, as if both of them were together in prayer.

“May the Light embrace you on this night, Princess Greymane,” he said in blessing. “And see you through into the dawn.”

There were more words, tangles of thanks, that got caught on his tongue. When he released Tess’ hands, she briefly touched the small fingers of one hand to the side of his bandaged cheek. Her eyes shone with a film of tears that disappeared with two hard blinks, her dark eyelashes keeping them at bay.

“Take care,” she said.

Anduin nodded, the calloused pads of Tess’ fingers brushing across the gauze strips. She withdrew her hand and raised the hood of her charcoal gray wool cloak, the tail of her braid disappearing in its shadow as she neatly tucked it in. The lower half of her face and nose protruded as she turned to give Shaw a nod over her squared shoulders. With her head held high, as all royals were taught to do, she strode from the room, her boots soundless on the floorboards.

“You’re not bringing any weapons?”

As the door clicked shut, Anduin turned to find Shaw still standing at the desk, all of the contents of the satchel laid out across his desk. He seemed greatly displeased with the display before him: Varian Wrynn’s compass, Tiffin Wrynn’s wedding rings, strips of salted beef jerky rubbed with spices, a small package of dried sweetened fruit, the remainder of his stash of healing potions, a shaving razor, two extra rubber socks for his prosthesis, a bar of soap, Tess’ bandages and ointments, and a few peppermints. To save weight, Anduin had packed only one of his mother’s five journals, the last one she had ever written in, which still contained a number of blank pages. It had been difficult to choose, but selfishly he wanted the one with entries that were mostly about the first year of his birth and the escalating tensions with the Stonemasons. Tucked into the back cover was an envelope which contained favorite pages he had torn out of the others. Some held his mother’s thoughts on crucial events that had happened during her time as queen, others contained descriptions of his father, some had recipes and her families' herbal remedies scribbled in the margins.

Anduin lifted his cloak, showing a tome strapped to his belt, the draenei’s holy script embossed on the cover and spine. The runes on the iron Light-suppressing manacle glowed faintly and his fingers itched from the pain that shot through his veins when he brought his hand near it. Shaw’s mustache twitched and his fingers pulled at the point of his beard.

“You should keep these on your person, first of all.” Shaw handed over the box containing the rings. “They will be the first to go if you get overtaken on the road.”

Anduin undid the clasp on his mother’s locket, hanging around his neck. He took both the wedding band and the diamond engagement ring and threaded the tarnished chain through their centers, tucking everything back in underneath the collar of his tunic once he secured the clasp. He left the empty jewelry box on the edge of Shaw’s desk.

“You’ll need a skinning knife,” the spymaster continued, each word coming from the back of his throat as he rubbed his chin. “Some rope, maybe a bit of wire for a snare. At least.”

Shaw’s hands moved quickly and soon Anduin’s possessions were packed more neatly and compactly into the leather satchel than they had been before. He added a length of rope from the top drawer of his desk and a toothed knife he took from his own belt. Anduin accepted the satchel, clutching it to his abdomen.

“Come with me.”

The king ducked his head and followed the spymaster out into SI:7 headquarters, following him downstairs into the basement. Shaw selected a few more items from the shelves around the large, cavernous room: a package of rations, a pair of flint sparking stones, a canteen, and two wire snares. He brought the king into a more crowded area, weaving around the other agents that milled about to check on the soundness of various stores of ammunition.

Shaw studied a rack of hunting bows hanging from one portion of the stone wall. After a moment, he selected a simple wooden recurve bow and a leather quiver of arrows. He slotted the bow into the holster at the side of the quiver and passed the bundle onto Anduin.

“You ought to relearn how to use that,” the spymaster said. “For hunting food, if nothing else.”

“I can’t think of better motivation,” Anduin tried to give a shaky smile beneath the layers of bandages as his hands fumbled with shouldering the quiver.

There was something both familiar and strange about the long-forgotten weight across his back. When Anduin tested his reach over his shoulder, he was almost surprised to find the curved wood greet his fingertips.

Shaw watched Anduin sling the pack, now with a substantial amount more heft, over his shoulder. The spymaster waited until Anduin had settled before handing over two additional thin leather pouches.

“Extra bowstrings,” Shaw explained as Anduin accepted them. “In addition to arrowheads and feathers. You’ll have to fashion the shafts yourself.”

“I can manage that,” Anduin decided. 

Shaw folded his arms, green eyes studying the man who stood before him, once again running his deft fingers through his sparse amount of beard. At last, he gave a nod of something that resembled approval.

“That should carry you for a while,” the spymaster agreed. “I could lend you more aid if you would at least tell me in which direction you intend to travel.”

Anduin’s mouth remained shut, his eyes flickering down towards the ground.

“I can’t risk it.”

“Hm.” Shaw nodded, a flicker of a smile crossing his face as he straightened and made his way to a far corner of the storeroom. “That’s good. I would do the same.”

Shaw pushed aside the folds of a dusty, faded tapestry hanging on the stone wall, the embroidery depicting a maiden with a unicorn laying together in an Elwynn field of wildflowers next to the great mountain waterfall. He let the heavy fabric drape across his armored shoulder as he brushed his hands over the wall and pulled open a hidden door. Easing a torch from the inner wall, Shaw lit it using the fire from an oil lamp burning inside the storeroom.

“This way,” he beckoned.

Anduin followed Shaw through the long, winding tunnels, the sounds of their boots muffled by the variations in the damp terrain. Anduin’s staff clicked against the floor as he used it to support the weight on his right side. His eyes glanced for distinct clues on the walls that would give away their location. He supposed it would be just as easy for Shaw to leave him down here, to wander alone and groping in the dark until thirst or starvation took him, as it would be to guide him out of the city. He tried not to think of it as he focused on the halo of the spymaster’s graying red hair, and the spines of his gold-plated eagle’s pauldrons.

Time became more meaningless the longer they walked in silence, broken only by the cries of surprised rats. Shaw avoided burning as many spiderwebs as he could. Anduin brushed away the occasional arachnid that dropped from the ceiling onto his shoulder, flicking their skittering limbs off.

The slope of the floor dipped so steeply that Anduin had to brace one hand against the wall to keep his boots from skidding down the damp surface. Shaw’s response was to quicken his gait and give into the incline with a slide, drawing the torchlight farther away. In the small fire’s absence, Anduin realized that he could actually see a distinct outline of the stones in the walls without it. There was a splash as Shaw’s boots landed in a shallow flow of running water and a moment later a second one sounded. Anduin could now see moonlight spilling in through a small metal grate door, which Shaw unlocked, setting the torch into an empty, cobweb-laced holder at the entryway. Fresh night air hit Anduin’s face as he drew closer.

“Your hand, please.”

Anduin obliged, pushing back his sleeve to reveal the manacle. A thin sliver of moonlight glinted off both the runes engraved in the heavy iron and the two lockpicks pursed between Shaw’s steady fingers. The spymaster took Anduin’s wrist and, after a moment or two, there was a quiet click and the scraping of metal as the manacle came undone. Anduin’s left hand clasped around the raw, reddened skin circling his right wrist. It hurt to run his fingers across it, but there was something satisfying about the pain. Shaw dropped the iron to the floor where it clattered against the stones with a dull, ordinary sound. With a swift kick of his boot, the spymaster sent the manacle skidding across the stones into a storm drain, where it was swallowed by darkness.

“Thank you,” Anduin said, rubbing his wrist.

Shaw inclined his head, slipping the lockpicks back into a small pocket at his waist. The two men stood, framed by the cold, blue moonlight spilling into the tunnel, their shadows elongated and swallowed by the dark mouth that led back into the passage. The torchlight flickered, throwing an orange glow over Shaw’s shoulders and illuminating his red hair.

"I’m not sure if I’ve done enough to ensure the stability of the Alliance," Anduin declared, at last, still rubbing at the knob of bone on the inner part of his wrist. “Or Stormwind. There will be much bloodshed, for certain. For however long this lasts."

Shaw gave a tired shrug.

"This system will take its pound of flesh from us all before it's finished," the spymaster said. "And some of us will undoubtedly lose more than others. There is no Titan of Justice to balance it. Whatever happens, happens. We will move forward."

“I can’t help but feel tremendous guilt, leaving you all to deal with it,” Anduin almost spat, turning his face away, tightening his grip so that his raw skin burned beneath the friction. “...I should stay and help. I can protect you. I can channel the Light to shield you, call upon the Shadows to hinder the advance of the army--”

“The most helpful thing you can do is to get as far away from here as you can,” Shaw’s voice cut him off, cold, unquestioning. “There must be a vacuum of power.”

Shaw took a breath, steadying his voice. “Think back to what we discussed: if you stay, regardless of your intent, you run the risk of influencing the outcome in a direction that won’t be in the people’s best interest. And if you were to be captured by any of the noble houses, Light forbid…”

The look on Anduin’s face, as obscured as it was by the stiff gauze wrappings, was enough to cut the spymaster off. Anduin felt a hand come to rest on his shoulder, a reassuring squeeze of fingers.

“Go,” Shaw’s voice was gentler, kinder, but no less urgent. “Stay off the main roads. Do not look back.”

Anduin at last gave a dip of his head in acknowledgment. He leaned his staff against, shifting his weight as he raised both hands.

“May I give you a blessing?”

The spymaster hesitated. For a moment, it seemed as if he would turn away and walk back into the darkness without a final word. Instead, Shaw merely nodded, and let his arms hang limp by his sides, hands tense as if they were ready to grab at a knife. Anduin’s fingers trembled slightly as they came to rest on the rough edges of Shaw’s unshaved jaw. The younger man took a small breath, heart skipping a beat as he began to pray. 

The words almost uttered themselves, Anduin’s lips tracing a well-worn path to give form to the sounds pushed from his throat and tongue, easily spoken from behind a tissue-thin veil over his memory. Shoulders slumped as the apprehension and fear in Anduin’s breast was replaced by a familiar, gentle warmth, every muscle in his body loosening as a welcoming whisper chimed in his ear. Shaw’s face was bathed in the white light that filled Anduin’s calm eyes. Energy flowed outward from the tips of Anduin’s fingertips, throwing long shadows from the two men’s linked bodies across the tunnel’s old stone walls. After a moment, Shaw’s copper-red eyebrows furrowed, then one quirked up, but he remained silent.

“...may the Light give you fortitude to strengthen your limbs and your resolve to endure the trial ahead.”

Anduin’s hands hovered in the air for a fraction of a second, fingers twitching from the residual pins and needles as the waves of Light receded. The tunnel around them plunged into darkness and their mortal eyes struggled to adjust to making do with only the dim glow of the hot torch flames once again. Shaw looked down at his own hands, turning them over as he curled his fingers within his gloves, flexing his arms and bending his knees a hair. He straightened, settling into his weight with his shoulders a fraction higher than they had been.

“Thank you,” the spymaster said. “I’ll be sure not to waste it.”

“A blessing from the Light is never a waste,” Anduin found himself uttering, softly, his cheeks reddening in the shadows. “You’ve done so much to protect me, I wouldn’t be much of a priest if I couldn’t do this at least in kind.”

He almost choked on the word _priest_ , the weight of it cumbersome against his teeth. Shaw noticed, his glass green eyes flickering. Anduin turned away and retrieved the staff, supporting the absent strength of his right leg into the wood once again. He felt strangely cold and lightheaded as he began to limp across the passage’s threshold. An odd kind of terror swept through him at the thought of turning around to take one last look at the Spymaster, as if doing so would bring some kind of curse down on both of them. Anduin drew his hood forward so that even the periphery of his vision was obscured by the rough, dark cloth, focusing on the trail of damp mud and weeds.

“May the naaru smile upon you, Shaw,” Anduin said, letting his left palm unfurl casually to the side of his shoulder in farewell.

Only silence met his back. He wondered if he had already missed his chance: if Shaw had silently slipped away to begin his tasks during the long night. Then he heard the loud grinding creak of the iron hinges, the sound of the door closing shut and locking behind him, and the soft, grave words:

“Good luck, Anduin.”

The former king kept his eyes on the uneven terrain ahead as he picked his way down the slope. The heels of his boots and the butt of his stave stuck in the mud and he had to yank them out with each step. Judging by the tall, white stone walls that towered to the left and right of the incline, he was somewhere beyond the city limits, where some of the sewers spilled out into the river. He did not yet recognize where he was and it would be hours before the sun would rise to provide clues. He pressed on. The terrain hardened, the mud abating into firmer earth, leaving his boots to track chunks of muck as he walked through the waves of tall grass. At last, he saw the moonlight illuminating a long, flat stretch of packed dirt on a raised part of the ground in the distance. It was the road and with the sight of the fence and signpost, he immediately oriented himself at the edge of Elwynn Forest.

Heeding Tess’ warning, Anduin turned away from the moonlight and walked beneath the boughs of the trees, keeping his shoulder to the path but his boots in the brush. He stumbled in the darkness, heart leaping with fear at the occasional dread of a twisted angle, but he soon got the hang of it, feeling first with the end of his stave to check for loose roots and rocks before placing his feet. The forest was humming with the chattering of the last of the summer cicadas, sleepy in the morning chill. The wind rustled in the leaves and the distant sound of animals rummaging did little to shatter his calm. Even the far off screams of gnolls had no effect on him. He let the night sounds wash over him, his mind strangely silent as he walked. Fragments of prayers manifested and skittered at the fringes of his thoughts.

Anduin walked for some time, staying just out of sight of the road, following it south. One foot in front of the other, his staff pressing to the earth every other step. The sound of armor clanking from a passing pair of soldiers drew his head down, but they paid him little mind, if they even noticed him at all. The noises he made were far too soft to be heard above the sounds of their shifting plates. He knew where each and every outpost was situated, who stood at them, and he avoided them.

A sound in the distance pricked at Anduin’s ears. At first, he mistook it for thunder, but the sky remained clear, not a cloud darkening the stars. It grew louder as he walked, unmistakably rushing toward him. His pulse quickened until it was in his throat. Then, it finally registered, he recognized the sound as hoofbeats, hundreds and hundreds of hoofbeats. This, he realized, just as the first of the riders galloped past on the road.

They overtook the road like a river broken from a dam. Horses of every size and breed, laden with saddles of inconsistent material and shape, if there were saddles at all. Their riders were dressed in unassuming cloaks and jackets, some wearing leather, others wearing cloth. None bore the designation of a standard or a tabard, not one chest was embroidered with a coat of arms. The one single feature that united them was the red bandana tied around each of their necks. Most wore them pulled high to cover the lower part of their faces and protect their lungs from the road dust. They moved up the road in the direction opposite to that in which Anduin walked, back towards the gleaming white stone walls of Stormwind City.

The last of the stragglers bringing up the rear guard galloped past and the rumbling of hoofbeats began to recede just as gradually as it had approached. Anduin realized that his heart was pounding and his hands were shaking and clammy in their gloves as he clung to his staff for support. He stopped walking and leaned against the wood, letting his head fall forward so that his brow pressed against it. One hand slipped into the satchel, digging until he withdrew the compass. The dull, salt-eaten metal caught the light of the moon as he flipped it open. Under the inside cover, a portrait of his father now sat atop the original portrait of himself as a child. Under Varian Wrynn’s calm, scar-blemished gaze, Anduin took a bearing, confirming his direction through the woods.

He headed east.

* * *

Anduin walked through the sunrise and well into the morning. He kept the front folds of his cloak drawn close to his chest even as the mounting sunlight warmed the forest, the tips of the leaves in the canopies just beginning to show hints of turning yellow and red with the change in season. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that he could no longer ignore the relentless pain in his leg and he stopped to rest, sinking down to cradle his body between the gnarled roots of an old tree. The long golden rays of the setting sun streaked through the branches back towards the west. He tried to push away thoughts of what would possibly be happening at the city gates as he reached for the canteen in his pack and took a short drink.

After a few moments of rest, Anduin started to gather wood for a shelter. He dragged a fallen tree branch that was longer than the length of his body over to a large rock that stood around the height of his hip so that one end dug into the dirt and the other was raised on top of the rock. Then, he scrounged the area, collecting smaller branches and pieces of fallen brush, arranging the sticks so that they formed a kind of tent around the branch. He packed the gaps with leaves and mulch until the structure was more or less enclosed. It was a slow process hindered by his increasing limp made worse by the encroaching chill of the night air. By the time he had finished, the sun was almost completely beneath the horizon. 

A not-too-distant gunshot, cracking through the branches, made Anduin turn his head sharply. Through the sound of his beating heart, he heard nothing further but the sounds of the woods and the crunching of his own boots on the ground. He removed his cloak and attached it to the front of the shelter so that if he tugged the hem down, it would completely cover the entrance. He guided his staff in so that it lay flush against the edge, and then slid feet-first inside on his stomach, pulling his satchel, quiver, and bow in after him. 

There was just enough overhead to where Anduin could prop himself comfortably on his elbows without his head hitting the ceiling. He shivered slightly. The shelter was warm and secure enough that his body heat would soon fill the area, though, and he tried to focus on searching his pack for food. He withdrew a short strip of jerky, stuffing the entire thing into his mouth. As Anduin chewed, he pulled out the wool blanket and set it down so that he could use it like a pillow. He slid off his gloves and flexed his sore fingers. Even in the dark he could see the unhealed bruises from the previous morning, dark and broken by the lines of old white scars. They were not so cold and stiff that he couldn’t undo the knot at the back of his head and carefully unwind the strips of bandages from his face. The cool evening air was a relief to his sticky skin. He rolled the gauze, tucking it away into the satchel for use the next day. By the time he had finished, his eyes were already heavy with the threat of sleep and he carefully rolled onto his back, ankles knocking against the narrower portion of the shelter.

Anduin stared up at the dark canopy of twigs and leaves, listening to the breeze rustle at the bits sticking out. The exhaustion from the ceaseless walking finally caught up with him as he took stock of every ache nipping at a muscle or bone, from his shoulders to his foot. He brought his right palm to rest over his right thigh and the stiff artificial material of the prosthesis socket. He had no desire to remove it for the night, in case he needed to abandon the encampment quickly. Though Erazmin’s modifications were working well and there was no sign of chafing, the muscle and bone in the leg were sore, like the rest of him after spending the entire day walking, and so he started to pray. 

The small space within the walls of the shelter brightened under a faint white glow that spread from Anduin’s fingers into his hip. Relief flooded through him as the bruises were soothed and the throbbing abated. He moved his other palm to his left leg and worked the same prayer, sending tendrils of Light all the way down to his foot. He examined the skin at his right wrist, still red from the months of small burns. It was too late to stop the scar tissue from forming, but a quiet word of devotion cooled the irritated skin and stopped it from itching. He laid his hands over his chest and murmured a small hymn, feeling his heartbeat steady and an overwhelming sense of calm and peace wash over. 

Tears pricked at the corners of Anduin’s heavy-lidded eyes, turning the walls of the shelter into a smear of light and shadow. The full weight of his exhaustion rolled down his relaxed body and it only took a few moments more for his prayers to quiet in his throat, for the Light to dim, and for a deep sleep to descend upon him.

* * *

_  
Anduin sat in a shadow on the stairs to the royal quarters, taking slow, measured breaths. Light from his fingertips illuminated the dark stairwell as his hand pressed to his right hip. He remained still and prayed until the throbbing pain had abated and he could stand, picking up the bottle of dark red wine. He straightened his shoulders and continued to climb, short, angry breaths leaving his nostrils on each step._

_The armored guards in the hall nodded to him in recognition and acknowledgment of his station as he limped past. He barely returned the gesture, focused on completing the journey to the ornate, wooden doors. Before he knocked, he smoothed his short bangs, carding his fingers through the strands to ensure they were even and didn’t drape over his eyes. Another short prayer to the Light steadied his pulse and calmed the tension in his shoulders. He almost felt like himself again, as much himself as he could be, by the time the doors opened._

_“Good evening, Anduin,” Varian’s warm, affectionate smile greeted him with the bright candlelight in the High King’s parlor. “Come in, Wyll’s just brought the food up.”_

_Anduin limped inside, heading straight for the table. A generous fire was roaring in the mantleplace, chasing away the late summer chill from the chambers. He set the wine bottle down with a louder _thump_ than he’d intended, freeing his hands to press into the sturdy wood and support himself as he eased into a chair to the right side of the king’s place setting._

_“No cane, today?” Varian asked, his shadow falling across the table as he walked around to the bottle, tipping it back to study the label. The king had traded his court clothing and armor for a simple cotton tunic and old brown breeches with scars of patched stitches. His long, thick brown hair hung loose over his shoulders, freshly washed and drying in small waves._

_“I’ve been trying to wean myself off it,” Anduin replied, focusing on unfolding the cloth napkin and smoothing it across his lap. His knee was twitching underneath the tablecloth._

_Varian gave a grunt of approval as he reached for the corkscrew. “Dalaran Red, excellent choice. Those mages must put something in here to give it that taste and strengthen the vintage.”_

_Anduin let his straight back press into the chair, eyes hooded as they swept across the table to survey the roasted chicken and spears of crisp, green asparagus. Round, red and yellow apples sat in a small bowl next to a board of creamy brie cheese and sweet sausage._

_“First of the harvest,” Varian indicated with the stained maroon tip of the cork, now speared in the metal corkscrew spiral. “I thought I’d try to goad you into taking a walk out to the Haywood orchard sometime this week. They sent a bushel over this morning, but there’s nothing quite like the sight of the trees with their fresh fruit.”_

_Anduin raised his shoulders in a shrug, eyes still contemplating the texture of the cheese rind. He listened to the sound of Varian pouring out two generous glasses, setting one down at the top of the prince’s plate. The High King finally took a seat, unceremoniously taking a long drink. Anduin followed, taking a much smaller sip. The dark tang felt strange on his tongue: perhaps there was a tingle of arcane there in the remnants that lingered. Varian began to cut into the sausage, doling out slices onto both of their small first course plates. Anduin mechanically picked up a piece with his fingers and began to nibble._

_“Is there any news from Lunarfall?” the prince asked._

_“Just the usual,” Varian replied around a mouthful, his knife working to cut into the soft cheese. “They’re still mostly gathering supplies at this point.”_

_After a moment, Anduin reached over and selected a small piece of fruit from the bowl. He picked up his own knife and cut off a slice. The sour, white fruit slid into his mouth and he chewed, the skin catching in his teeth. It was difficult not to notice Varian’s not-so-discreet glances, nor the hint of worry in his brow._

_“Let’s not talk about Draenor,” the High King said. “How was your day?”_

_Anduin lifted his shoulders again, stuffing another large bite of cheese into his mouth to delay an answer._

_“Were you training in the old barracks today?”_

_Heat rose to Anduin’s face and he paused mid-chew, unable to stop his eyes from widening a fraction. This reaction from the Crown Prince brought a similar flush to Varian’s face and he lifted his hand to rub the back of his neck, beneath the curtain of his long, dark brown hair._

_“Ah, I’m sorry,” Varian apologized. “I happened to see you headed out that way last week with your sword and in your training leathers...I meant to mention it sooner....”_

_“I felt it was time to pick up my practice again, yes,” Anduin interrupted, thumbing at the skin of the apple. He failed to hide the irritation in his voice, and it came out sounding like a stranger’s._

_Varian twiddled with his knife while Anduin began to serve himself from the main course, plucking spears of crisp buttery asparagus from the tray and lining them up in a row on his plate._

_“...you know, there’s no rush…” Varian ventured._

_Anduin seized the carving knife and drove it into the side of the roasted chicken, steam wafting up from the sliced flesh. “I’m at the stage in my recovery where I require constant, consistent exercise. More rest and avoidance of old activities at this point will only do me harm.”_

_“Is that what the mistweavers recommended?”_

_“It’s what Dr. Breckenridge recommends.”_

_Varian nodded, looking distant as he took up the carving knife and began to take his own slices from the crisp bird. Anduin began to cut his meat into small pieces, shuffling them around in their oily juices on the plate._

_“Well, I suppose you should, then.” Varian’s tone was unsure, his calloused fingers coming up to rub at his unshaved jaw. “If you want me to train with you, you have only to ask.”_

_Anduin shook his head, digging the prongs of his fork into the dark slice of chicken thigh as his knife worked at the stubborn skin. “That won’t be necessary. And you are far too busy.”_

_Varian cleared his throat. “Not so much that it would be impossible to clear away an hour or so to help you with your footwork. Training dummies are well and good, but it’s always better if you have someone to trade blows with, a second pair of eyes to spot your form.”_

_Anduin raised his shoulders again, his jaw clenching. He didn’t want to admit that his reason for sneaking around, for working with the light training sword in the darkness of the old dusty structure behind the lake, was that he couldn’t stand to have eyes on him as he relearned what his body could and could not do. Lunging from certain stances was impossible, pivoting in certain ways or at certain speeds hurt, and holding the training claymore for any great length of time was more than his shoulders and his dominant arm could manage without the cane._

_Not to mention the ghost of his old sparring partner at the Tavern still haunted the edges of his vision. Spending too much time in the barracks, alone, brought the chilling feeling that at any moment a rogue would sidle up from behind. He could feel the memory of a warm arm curling over his shoulder and the press of a friendly dagger against his throat while a hot whisper slid in his ear:_ You ought to be more careful, Your Highness... __

_“Your hair seems a bit longer.” Varian’s voice, uncharacteristically gentle, disrupted his thoughts._

_Anduin kept his gaze focused on his plate, resisting the urge to drop his utensils and check the orderliness of his bangs again. “I’m growing it out.”_

_Varian made a small grunt of approval. “Oh, good. I think it’ll suit you. I started letting mine grow when I was much younger than you.”_

_The rest of dinner was quiet, with gentler conversation about the state of the Keep. Varian was determined to spend some time on housekeeping tasks that had lapsed during his absence to Pandaria, delegating a few for Anduin to handle as the prince eased back into his old duties. Varian’s unrelentingly patient tone and the wine gradually wore Anduin down until he relaxed and slumped comfortably into the back of the king’s guest chair, the ache in his legs alleviating. The two of them brought slices of pie over to the tea table by the fireplace. Varian donned his reading glasses to look over the remnants of the day’s paperwork while Anduin settled down with a book on dwarven archeology._

_“Here.” Varian placed two pillows on top of the tea table. “You should rest your legs.”_

_“Princes shouldn’t put their feet on the furniture,” Anduin mocked, but the bite was gone from his voice and he managed to crack a smile as Varian rolled his eyes._

_The Crown Prince complied with a sigh as he stretched out, balancing the book on his stomach. Varian tossed another log into the fire and Anduin’s eyes drooped as he read, listening to the sounds of his father’s grumbling and muttering as he scribbled furiously with his quill._

_Anduin awoke the next morning surprised to find himself still on the sofa, a quilt draped over his form that had been turned and laid across the sofa, a pillow placed under his head. Their crumb-coated porcelain plates were still on the tea table...  
_

Anduin rose abruptly, hitting his forehead against the rough wood of the shelter and nearly causing it to collapse on top of him. His mind struggled to comprehend the unfamiliar bed he’d woken up in. A sickening fear roiled in his gut for a brief moment as he remembered that he would likely never sleep in sheets under the rafters of the royal chambers again, but the sight of the early sun peeking in quickly settled him. He could hear waking birds complaining in the trees and the sound drew him to push the cloak back, blasting his hot face with the chilly morning air.

Breakfast was the other half of the piece of jerky and more water. Anduin’s joints felt stiff as he worked his way towards a standing position, neither unusual nor unexpected after spending the night sleeping on the ground. His right hip bore his weight with less complaints than it had the day before. Some stretching and a quick prayer had him feeling more mobile. He disassembled the shelter, scattering the branches as best he could, flinching at the sound of more gunshots. They were too sporadic to be signs of fighting, he hoped, but he didn’t want to risk going any closer to find out. Anduin re-did the bandages to mask his face, knotted the bandana around his neck, and slipped on his gloves. He shook leaves and grass from his cloak and fastened the dull clasp around his collar, shouldering both the quiver, bow, and his satchel once more. A quick check of the map and the compass determined his direction. He struck out to the south-east, deeper into the Elwynn woods, in search of a stream from which to refill his canteen.

Anduin continued to walk for the next several days, listening to the frequent sounds of gunfire that shared no common trend of frequency and distance. He nibbled at the strips of jerky and handfuls of fruit. He located a spring and gulped down generous mouthfuls of water. At night he would collect branches for a fresh shelter to scatter them in the morning. He used the Light to help soothe his aches and anxiety, enough to get a restful sleep. It occurred to him, finally, that there was nothing adhering him to a schedule, and set up camp in the middle of the day when his knee felt as if it would crumble beneath him and spent the afternoon reading from his mother’s journal, sucking on dried pieces of fruit and dozing under his cloak in between prayers to mend the strained tendons around his knee. Only the distant sound of gunshots drew him up, back onto his path through the trees. He gathered bunches of peacebloom to tide him over and used Shaw’s knife to cut strips of inner bark from certain familiar trees. Chewing on it curbed his hunger and had the added benefit of alleviating the pain in his bones, as well. Occasionally he ran into wary hunters or farmers foraging, who fortunately were grateful for a priest's blessing of fortitude before letting him continue on his way.

By the thirteenth day, Anduin found his growing appetite was no longer ignorable. Though water was plentiful in the woods, he was burning through his rations far more quickly than he would have liked. He was not even half way through Elwynn and the terrain would only worsen once he reached Redridge. He stopped to drop his satchel and test the bow. It was stiff and took some effort to bend. The arrow felt clumsy in his gloved hands, his fingers still stiff and sore from the months of breaking and mending. The first shot flopped through the air and was swallowed in the tall grass a quarter way to its intended target: a spot on a nearby tree trunk. Anduin limped over to the arrow, picked it up, and tried again. This time, it crossed the intended distance, but embedded itself in the lower roots. The third time, Anduin muttered a quick prayer to Saa’ra before his fingers released and the arrow burrowed itself into the tree trunk, almost exactly in the spot his eyes had trained upon.

Using the bow was like learning to ride a horse again. Though his arms and shoulders weren’t quite as strong as he would have liked and even the single day of practice had overworked them, the memory of the gestures had solidified and his aim was only slightly worse than he remembered.

Finding something to hunt was another matter. Though Anduin’s nightly prayers had eased some of the strain that had built up in his hip from the months of neglecting to refit the prosthesis and mornings spent kneeling on dried rice grain, it was difficult to walk without support. He carried the staff strapped to his back in place of the bow at the ready between his hands. It was almost well into the afternoon before he spotted movement in the brush out of the corner of his eye. The white tail of a rabbit flickered as it scampered into the shadows at his approach, but it wasn’t quick enough to escape the swift movement of Anduin’s arms and the arrow that launched from his fingers.

Though Anduin had no seasoning for the meat, the burnt taste of it with the cooked juices sent a jolt of energy through him. He finished every bite, snuffing out the fire before the sun went down. He set up shelter a distance away from the campsite just in case the smoke had attracted any wanderers, and fell asleep before he finished his prayers, lulled by the lazy, heavy feeling of a full stomach and over-exercised arms.

The next morning he woke feeling the full weight of grime that had built up over the course of the past multitude of days. His meandering path trailing south-east had finally brought him almost to the banks of the great river that divided Elwynn and the Duskwood, and he decided to use the compass to point himself directly south to finish the distance. At the banks of the river, he found a secluded spot close to the shallows where the tree cover and brush were thick and the water was fortunately not rushing too swiftly and stripped down, leaving his clothes and the bandages in a pile over his bow and staff. Anduin tugged the band out of his hair and let it fall free from the bun in greasy strands around his shoulders. He sat down on the bank and removed the prosthesis, massaging the limb after peeling off the rubber sock. The adjusted socket was fitting well and though it was a bit sore, there were no welts or bruises when he checked the skin.

Anduin reached over to carefully lay the prosthesis on top of his cloak, then rummaged in his satchel until he found the bar of soap, placing it within easy reach in the grass at the edge of the bank. He swung his leg over, gritting his teeth as he dipped his toe cautiously into the cold water. A shiver ran up his leg all the way through to his spine, but after taking a couple of steadying breaths he let himself slide in until the ball of his foot found the soft but gritty silt at the bottom. Anduin’s knee locked, and when he stood, the water came up to his chest. Sucking in air and puffing out his cheeks, he squeezed his eyes shut and dunked his head underneath, committing to the fullness of the sharp chill. His skin tingled as it adjusted to the temperature and he surfaced to gasping, hair slicked over his face. 

The water was crisp, but not insufferable for the season. Anduin relaxed, letting his limbs drift in the current, tipping his head back for a moment so that his blond hair swirled into a clean arc as he combed his fingertips across his scalp. He rolled over and swam in circles, the water alleviating the strain from his legs, feeling the tension drain from his limbs without the help of the Light. When he tired, he fell backwards again to float on his back and stare up into the clear blue sky past the treeline. The sun gleamed somewhere off to the west, on its descent to herald the late afternoon.

The sound of brush rustling drew his head upward. His heart leapt in his throat at the sight of a border collie peering back at him with bright, eggshell-blue eyes from the shore. The dog’s soft black ears perked with curiosity, a beautiful furry tail wagging back and forth behind her. Anduin felt a small smile tug at his lips.

“Hello there,” he greeted.

The dog dipped her head and the slender jaws opened to neatly take the ankle of the prosthesis into her mouth. Anduin’s left foot swung down to hit the damp riverbottom, water splashing as his arms swung and his commanding shout rang out across both banks.

“ _HEY!_ ”

The dog bolted, dragging the gnomish engineered limb with her.

“Light _damn_ it!” 

The swear tore from Anduin’s lips before he had time to think or regret and the water churned as he pulled himself towards the shore. His scarred hands froze as they gripped the edge of the bank, knee half-bent with most of his body still underwater, realizing that a second pair of dark brown eyes was staring back at him from above the bushes.

There was a girl standing a distance away in the tall grass, too old to be a child but too young to be considered a teenager. Her dark brown hair hung in a long thick braid over one shoulder, heavy brows drawn tight in a furrowed expression over her eyes. She wore a simple pale blue tunic with a pattern of faded white flowers that seemed too big for her thin frame, tucked into a pair of brown breeches with thick patches sewn into both knees. The right sleeve was pinned up above where her elbow should have been.

After what felt like an eternity, Anduin’s tongue moved in his dry mouth as he attempted to swallow: “Was that your dog?”

At the sound of his voice, the girl turned and ran in the direction the border collie had fled, off through a path in the woods.

Anduin crawled out of the river and shook himself dry as quickly as he could, using his cloak to mop up the rest of the water. He dressed while sitting on the ground and rolled up his right pant leg, cutting a bit of twine from the bundle Shaw had given him to tie the end in place. He pulled his hair back up into a bun and wound the gauze bandages around his face, rolling over to check his reflection in the river to ensure that most of his features were covered. He fastened his pack, the quiver, and the bow across his back and knelt, holding the staff upright in the dirt with both gloved hands wrapped tightly around the midsection where the strip of teal windwool silk was wrapped. With a grunt, he pushed himself up onto his left boot, using the staff to steady himself. He quickly found his balance and, with the staff acting as a crutch, began to hop at a slow but persistent clip towards the path that the dog and the girl had run towards.

The path was faint but easy to follow, even for Anduin’s untrained eyes. Many footprints littered with crushed leaves overlaid the packed dirt. It had foolishly not occurred to him that he would not be the only traveler in the forest to be drawn by the calmer bend in the great river. He lost track of time, focused only on moving forward. Hours passed, enough for the sun to begin to dip down towards the horizon, darkening the strips of shadows from the tree trunks. He was rewarded, at last, by the sight of a gap in the trees, and the sight of a whitewash painted fence.

Anduin pitched towards the fence, leaning into it as he struggled to catch his breath, muttering a blasphemous combination of prayers and curses. At the edge of the forest was a small farmhouse, the yellow paint chipped and worn by exposure to the weather. Dark smoke curled up from a brick stack at the northern wall. Most of the yard was taken up by a field ringed in by the fence, where a large brown cow lifted her head to observe him calmly. A small red barn almost the same size as the house stood nearby next to a tiny chicken coop. 

Anduin’s heart caught in his throat at the sight of a woman standing beside a stump. She wore a yellow-checkered button-up shirt under a pair of suspenders attached to her thick black breeches, the pant legs tucked into heavy, steel-tipped boots. A stack of rugged logs stood to her right side; a rust-edged wheelbarrow loaded with wedges of chopped wood stood before her on the opposite end of the chopping block. Her hands were reaching for a rifle she had resting on the ground beside her and in a split-second it was over her shoulder, the mouths of the dark iron double-barrels pointed in his direction.

“Put your hands up.”

Her voice rang clear across the yard, uncompromising, amber eyes boring into him, wisps of honey-blonde hair falling out of its bun and across her face. Anduin slowly obeyed her command, letting his staff fall to the earth. He locked his knee as he turned away from the fence, wobbling but not losing his balance.

“Please, I mean no harm--”

“Shut up,” the woman said. “Pick up your staff and turn around. Go on, get out of here, back the way you came.”

For a moment, Anduin was frozen in place, the cow reaching her head over the fence to investigate his left elbow with her wet nose. Before he could utter another word or attempt to lean over and pick up his staff, the farmhouse door swung open and another woman strode out across the dusty lawn. Her hair was pinned up in a crown of tidy dark brown braids and she wore a black apron embroidered with yellow, orange, and green feathered roosters over her long dark red skirt and crisp white blouse. Cradled awkwardly in her arms was his prosthesis.

“Nell!” she shouted. “ _Nell!_ Stop! It’s his leg!”

“I can see that,” the woman in the steel-toed boots barked, her amber gaze unwavering down the end of her rifle. Her face was splattered with so many freckles they almost eclipsed her fury-reddened skin underneath. 

The woman in the apron marched up to the one carrying the gun and reached out to place her hand on the barrel, pushing it towards the ground. The woman in the steel-toed boots locked her jaw and whipped her shoulders around to face her. They began to have a tense conversation that Anduin could not hear over the rustling of the wind, the distant fire of gunshots, and the quiet noises from the cow at his elbow. He slowly lowered his hands to find purchase on the fence again, feeling his knee quiver beneath him. He reached out to pet a spot between the cow’s eyes, where a small heart-shaped brown spot was. The cow seemed to enjoy the attention and quieted, leaning into his touch.

The woman in the steel-toed boot’s voice became louder and louder until finally Anduin heard “--don’t give a damn what the Light says about giving a poor wanderer shelter, the Light never had to wake up in the middle of the night to find a knife at its throat--” followed by a shushing noise.

Anduin cleared his throat. “I’ll be able to travel away from here at a much quicker pace if I could just have that back.”

The two women turned to stare at him, as if they had forgotten that he could contribute to a conversation. The one wearing the heavy boots continued to regard him with a tense, hostile gaze but her companion beckoned him forward.

“Please, come have a seat,” the woman wearing the apron urged, bending over to remove the ax and the half-torn log of wood from the block. “Would you like some help?”

“Oh, no, thank you.” 

Using the fence as a ballast, Anduin bent forward to retrieve the staff, setting it upright, then quickly used it to hop across the distance between the fence and the offered seat. The sound of loud gunfire, closer than it had been, made all of them turn to look out into the distant woods, on the other side of the farmhouse. Anduin gave a tense smile to each woman in kind before easing himself down onto the block, relief flowing through him as he accepted the prosthesis.

“What’s the matter with your face?” the woman in the steel-toed boots asked, not returning the smile.

“Burns,” Anduin said, letting the comforting weight of the metal leg rest across his lap, fingers twitching. “I was in a terrible accident. It’s not quite healed and I don’t wish to frighten people.”

After a moment’s hesitation, he raised his right hand and peeled back the wrist of his glove, just enough to show the red, blistered but scarring skin on his wrist. The woman in the apron’s hand came to cover her mouth and the woman in the steel-toed boots pursed her lips, the look on her face incredulous and the grip on her rifle as tight as ever as the other woman pulled her away from the tree stump to continue their conversation.

Anduin shifted around so that his back was to them, spreading the folds of his cloak out so that he had a small amount of modesty. It was getting dark and there wasn’t anyone else around except the cows to watch him as he set the prosthesis down on the ground and unlaced his breeches, carefully shifting them down to his ankle so that he sat in his small-clothes on the trunk. He rummaged for a clean sock from his satchel and set to work fitting the socket back on his limb, standing up to finish the adjustments and to pump the air out to finish the seal. As he finished pulling his pants on, a loud explosion somewhere in the distance almost made him fall over as he stumbled to turn around, towards the source.

The two women were also facing the woods behind the farmhouse. Over the treeline, somewhere towards the east, there was thick black smoke blooming above the canopy, the sign of a fresh fire. The two women turned to look at each other, locking eyes.

“Sir,” the woman in the apron said, gesturing to Anduin with one hand as the other nervously plucked at the fabric of her skirt. “Why don’t you come inside?”

“I--” 

Anduin hesitated, tongue pressing into the back of his teeth as he sidled a glance at the other woman with the steel-toed boots, but she had already gone, heading towards the fence where the cows were grazing. He then turned his gaze towards the smoke, still billowing upwards in fresh black clouds from somewhere in the direction he wanted to be traveling. As the sun continued to set, the apparent red glow and faint yellow sparks could just be seen outlining the treetops. Distant gunshots crackled in the cold evening air. 

“...thank you.”

He collected his things and followed the woman up the gravel path towards the farmhouse door, adorned with an acorn-laced wreath of twigs and wildflowers. Yellow candlelight spilled out from the fogged windows, falling over the crooked porch. He followed the woman’s example and started to wipe the soles of his dirt-caked boots off on the large, well-worn mat that lay before the front of the doorway.

“Leave your weapons outside,” the woman nodded towards a trunk that sat in between two rocking chairs that faced the yard, her kind eyes apologetic but unwavering as she stooped over to unlace her ankle-high brown leather boots. Up close, he could see that her nose was swollen and bruised, as if it had only recently begun to heal from an injury. “And take off your boots. Thank you kindly.”

“Of course.”

Anduin removed the quiver and the bow, placing them inside the trunk on top of another rifle and a pair of pistols. He took out Shaw’s knife as well and slipped it in before closing the heavy lid, leaving his staff leaning against the wall beside it but keeping the draenei tome attached to his belt. He knocked the last of the mud from his boots over the side of the porch railing and left them beside the woman’s before crossing the threshold.

The farmhouse consisted of mostly one room with a kitchen and a bed crammed in along with a round wooden table and chairs, which Anduin limped towards. The walls were bare except for a tarnished metal piece above the bed in the shape of the cross of the Church of the Holy Light and the windows were covered in sheets of plastic in preparation for the approaching winter. A single door to his right was slightly ajar, opening to what appeared to be a closet-sized washroom with a tub. The room was warm, a modest fire roaring, with the border collie he had seen earlier lounged before it, her head raised to examine the unfamiliar visitor with her eggshell-blue eyes. At the stove was the girl he had seen earlier by the river, stirring a cast-iron skillet filled with sliced leeks in oil with a large wooden spoon, the smell of which filled the small space. Her eyes darted towards him when he entered and immediately turned back to the skillet.

“Thank you, darling,” the woman said, gesturing towards the spoon. “I can take over from here. Why don’t you go lie down?”

The girl relinquished the spoon and darted towards the double-sized bed that was pushed against the far corner of the room. She crawled under the quilt with her face turned towards the wall.

“I’m Fae Woodward,” the woman said, scooping up handfuls of chopped carrots and celery to the skillet, oil hissing under the fresh vegetables. “That’s my daughter, Adeline. What’s your name, stranger?”

“Jerek,” Anduin replied, stifling his groan as he eased himself into one of the chairs at the table, letting his satchel rest on the floor beside him. “Jerek Ellerian.”

“Ah, so you’re from Westfall.” Fae nodded, calming the crackles and pops in the hot oil as she stirred.

“...my family is,” Anduin conceded. The border collie rose to her feet and trotted over him, pressing her nose to his left knee. He offered his cupped palm and she pressed her wet nose into his glove, sniffing, pink tongue sampling the leather.

Fae made a humming noise but offered no further information or attempts at conversation. They sat in silence as she carried the crisp vegetable mixture in the skillet over to a large iron pot hanging from a rod over the fireplace, stirring everything together. She poured a glass of water and slid it towards Anduin, who murmured his thanks as he continued to pet the dog that was now sitting square between his legs with her snout resting on his left thigh. Fae took a second glass over to the bed, where she sat with one hand on the shaking slope of the girl beneath the quilt.

The windows had completely darkened by the time the door banged open again and the other woman stepped inside, without her steel-toed boots. She gave Anduin a pointed stare as she crossed the floor, bare footsteps heavy on the boards, to pour a glass of water for herself.

“Cows are settling down in the barn,” she said to the woman on the bed. “Chickens are a bit spooked but they’ll be alright.”

“How is Rosie? Any progress?”

The other woman shook her head and proceeded to chug down the entire glass in one go. When she finished, she poured herself a second helping from the pitcher. She leaned back against the counter, the glass held high in her freckled hand, amber eyes focusing on Anduin.

“So what’s your deal, then?”

“This is Jerek Ellerian,” Fae offered. “Jerek, this is my friend, Nellie Sommer. She’s been helping us around the farm.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you all,” Anduin said, his voice quiet as he bowed his head. “I’m very grateful for your hospitality.”

Nellie continued to study him with her sharp eyes like he was a kind of text she intended to decipher.

“So that’s the noble house you’re fleeing from, then.” She tapped her short, chipped fingernail against the side of the glass. “Didn’t think there were any Ellerians still in Stormwind City.”

Anduin felt his stomach clench but he swallowed and nodded. “It’s just myself, as far as I’m aware. I was brought there to recover after the accident.”

“Well you sure did pick the perfect time to be in the city, didn’t you?” Nellie snorted, glancing over at Fae. “Told you he was a noble. Had to be, with an accent and boots like that. Not to mention the leg, it’s far too nice compared to what anyone else can get around here, the raw materials alone have got to be worth more than this entire property...”

“We’re very sorry for the trouble,” Fae butted in, rising to check on the stew. “Blue over there drags all sorts of things in from the woods, though I can’t say she’s found anything quite like this before…”

“It’s fine,” Anduin said, giving the dog a small smile. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the girl sitting up in bed to take the glass of water from her mother. Her face had a familiar kind of tension to it, her jaw clenched and eyes shining and watery as she stared at her mother stirring the contents of the pot. “Forgive me, is your daughter ill?”

Fae straightened, wiping her hands on her apron before planting them on her hips. She was silent for a few moments, chewing on her lip, but finally spoke: “Her arm is troubling her a bit. She has a terrible pain, but there’s nothing we can do. The way she describes it, it’s like it’s coming from the arm that isn’t there.”

“Ah,” Anduin nodded. “I’m familiar with that. If you’d like, I can help a bit. I’m a priest. I can’t stop them from ever happening again, but I know a prayer that can lessen the intensity of the feeling.”

Silence descended over the small room, broken only by the crackling of a splitting log in the fire, long enough for Anduin to wonder if he shouldn’t have offered anything. Adeline’s eyes remained fixed on her mother’s identical ones.

“It’s up to you,” Fae said, her voice soft and neutral.

Adeline turned her serious gaze to study Anduin, who had averted his own eyes respectfully downwards to consider the content border collie’s face, still panting happily between his knees from the attention. As he continued to rub the dog’s head, he heard the sound of the mattress creaking and quiet footsteps approaching. He looked up to find the girl standing before him, her mother and Nellie watching them closely.

Anduin did his best to smile from between the bandages. “May I see your arm?”

“She doesn’t talk much to strangers,” Nellie’s voice hurled from where she stood guarding the stove. 

“That’s fine,” Anduin said. “She doesn’t have to.”

After a moment, the girl dipped her chin in a nod and extended the limb, rolling her right shoulder forward. Anduin undid the pin, rolling the blue floral print sleeve up until he could see the limb. He cupped his hand beneath it and laid his other on top, lowering his eyelids as he began to murmur a quiet prayer. The Light flowed through him and he channeled it into the severed nerves, as he had done for his own many, many times before. The glow illuminated both of their faces and the dog, who lifted her head to watch. Adeline inhaled sharply through her nose in surprise, almost pulling away, but gradually her breathing grew more even and calm. When he finished, the tension had eased from her face.

“Better?” he asked, lightly. He received a nod in return. “I can teach you the words, if you want. It’s a simple enough prayer. You might not be able to draw the healing energy of the Light right away, but with some practice, you should be able to ease some of the pain when it happens again.”

Adeline glanced at her mother, who was staring at Anduin curiously.

“...I thought only a priest of the Holy Light who had taken the sacrament of confirmation could channel the Light?” Nellie queried.

Anduin rolled over a number of possible responses to this in his mind before answering: “The Archbishop of Stormwind requires confirmation for those who would wield it as a formal representative of the Church. Anyone is capable of drawing the Light’s grace with faith and a bit of practice.”

Fae looked to her daughter and repeated: “It’s up to you.”

Adeline looked to Anduin once again, her mouth pressed into a frown, looking deeply skeptical.

“You don’t have to say them out loud,” he offered as a compromise. “You can just concentrate on them in your mind.”

After another moment, this compromise was met with a nod and while the stew finished simmering, Anduin taught the girl the prayer, having her practice on the dog by petting her. The border collie didn’t seem any more blessed for it, but was appreciative of the attention and the warm glow from Anduin’s successful prayer, long tail sweeping back and forth tirelessly across the wooden floor where she sat at their feet.

“It will take some time,” Anduin concluded as Fae brought out a stack of wood turned bowls and Nellie ventured over to the table. “You’ll know when you’ve succeeded, though. It’s unmistakable, the feeling of the first wisp, like the sun is warming your bones.”

Adeline’s expression had not changed and she remained looking unimpressed as she scooted her chair around to face the table.

The stew was thick and good, the flavors from the vegetable and the chicken bone broth almost overwhelming to Anduin’s reduced pallet. He tried not to eat too quickly but it didn’t take long before he was scraping the bottom of the bowl.

“I’m sorry it isn’t seasoned,” Fae said. “Spices have been hard to come by since the war. Please help yourself to more, if you’d like.”

“It’s the best soup I’ve had in ages, thank you,” Anduin replied, rising to his feet to limp over to where the ladle was hanging from the side of the pot.

Nellie’s eyes hadn’t left him since she’d entered the cabin and Anduin felt his face grow hot under his bandages from both the intensity of the fire and her gaze as she watched him return to his seat.

“So you’re another noble fleeing from Stormwind with their tail tucked between their legs, then?” Nellie’s voice bit as he lowered himself slowly into the chair, wincing slightly.

“I suppose you could put it that way,” Anduin answered with care, before pausing to gently blow across the surface of the stew.

“It’s odd to think of an Ellerian fleeing East,” Nellie continued, unrelenting. “If I were you, I’d be going to Westfall, to seek shelter with your family house.”

Anduin took his time, chewing on a piece of carrot. He felt an abrupt pang of deep sadness take him, his eyes twinging with pain as he looked down into his bowl. He swallowed, blinking back the strange tears, flushing even redder from embarrassment as his shaking fingers lowered the spoon.

“I…” when he spoke, his dry voice cracked. “...I have someone who is very dear to me, who lives past the northern border of Redridge Mountain. I would be welcome to rejoin my family in Westfall, I’m certain, but...”

His voice trailed off as he coughed. Fae reached over with the pitcher and refilled his glass, which he took with a grateful murmur before gulping down. By the time it was empty again, the feeling had passed, and he was able to give her a small smile. The sound of more gunfire in the distance could be heard through the windowpanes, drawing the gazes of everyone in the room, though there was nothing to see in the blackness that pressed against the glass. Nellie and Fae exchanged glances, a silent conversation passing between them.

“You can sleep in the barn tonight,” Nellie said at last, squaring her jaw as she stared at Anduin. “If you’d like.”

Another explosion, much closer than the one that they had witnessed earlier, rattled the air. Anduin’s heart leapt into his throat and he clutched the edge of the table, squeezing back an unbidden memory of strange dark fields heavy with a poisonous green mist.

“I would like that very much,” he managed to say with a steady voice. “Thank you.”

While Adeline was helping Fae clear away and clean the dishes, Nellie brought Anduin back outside, where he donned his boots. He left his weapons in the trunk but took his staff to use as a support as he crossed the yard in the pool of light from the lantern in Nellie’s hand. She took him through the doors of the small barn, using the wick of the lantern to light its twin hanging from an iron hook at the far end. The cow with the heart-shaped patch on her face, the one that he had seen earlier in the field, was now staring back at him from one of the stalls where she lay on its hay-covered floor. One of the other stalls had what looked like a dilapidated harvester hunched over, its long, blade-tipped arms hanging down from underneath the dark tarp drawn over it. In the stall across from it stood one that held a second cow, her golden-brown side heaving, considerably swollen. Her panting filled the small, dark space. Her wide-blown black eyes stared at them warily as she paced the length of it, her tail raised in a slight arc.

“Do not go near that animal,” Nellie ordered, bringing over a pitchfork and sticking it fork-down into a trough filled with straw. “You can pull out some of this and make a bed for yourself in that empty one over there. It should be mostly clean.”

She turned at the last moment and stood staring at him, the lantern so bright it almost blew out her expression.

“You should get on your way as soon as you can in the morning.”

Anduin bowed his head. “I will be gone before the sun rises. I cannot express my gratitude enough for your hospitality, I’m aware that my presence is an unwelcome disruption to…”

“Fae is a good woman and she worships the Light,” Nellie interrupted. “She would never let a priest go hungry. If I wake up to find you’ve taken advantage of her kindness, in any way, I will hunt you down and shoot you.”

Anduin pressed his lips together so firmly that he could almost feel the blood drain from them. He kept his head bowed and his eyes downcast to the floor as he waited for her to leave, shutting the barn door behind her. He exhaled, his shoulders rolling forward as the tension drained from him. He shuttled back and forth between the trough and the stall until there was a small amount of hay in the corner, enough to cushion him when he lay down, stretching his limbs out. It smelled crisp and like the wood. He hadn’t realized how much his back missed having the support until he was rolling in it, letting his limbs flop out with relief. 

The barn’s silence was peppered only by the distant sound of gunfire, louder through the thinner walls of the barn, and the responding murmurs from the nervous cows. Anduin arranged his cloak beneath him and removed the bandages, scrubbing his stiff skin with his bare fingers. He kept his boots on and his satchel and staff ready by his side as he drifted off to sleep, the glow of the Light warming his heart beneath his resting hands.

* * *

Anduin awoke to a strange unfamiliar sound, straw scattering as he pushed himself up. His eyes blinked in the dark candlelight and he sat, frozen, his tired mind struggling to push back the dream and gain purchase on the situation around him. After a moment, he was on his feet, one hand lifted in the air so that the Light in his cupped palm spilled out across the small space. The distressed sounds were coming from the brown cow, who was standing with her back to his. Something strange and wet was on the floor of the stall that he hadn’t noticed before, and beneath her tail was a dark red bulge.

Anduin’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening. He sank down, lowering his hand and letting the barn fall back into darkness. The cow continued to murmur to herself, making frequent ragged sounds in distress. Anduin sat, kneading his knuckles into his increasingly clammy palms, each cry stabbing him with anxiety and driving his ability to return to sleep farther and farther away. He had witnessed a few foals being born at the Keep, a goat once in Pandaria, but couldn’t recall this exact volume of noise coming from the mother. Were cows different?

With each passing hour, it became increasingly clear that something was very wrong and finally he stood up again, casting the Light across the stall. The cow had dropped to her side and her back legs twitched as she struggled to push. There was a great deal of blood, dark and slick with other discharges in a puddle around her.

The Light brightened in Anduin’s hand as an accidental half-prayer, half-curse tore from his lips. 

“Oh, Light, help me.”

* * *

It was still dark outside when the barn door banged open, Nellie standing in the doorway in pajamas and boots, holding a lantern aloft, long blonde hair spilling down past her elbows in waves crinkled by sleep. Her dark-rimmed amber eyes widened at the sight of Anduin kneeling in blood and birthing discharge at the mother’s side, the cow calm beneath his hands as he worked to restore the torn internal tissue with the Light’s mending energy. A small, wet calf knelt in the corner, fur spiking as it dried. She turned her small head in confusion to watch the new movement as Nellie stumbled towards them.

Anduin’s concentration broke for a moment, ripples darkening beneath him, but he recovered and continued the last bits of mending. A few stray thoughts moved sluggishly in the back of his mind, mostly with keeping the cow calm as she rolled beneath him onto her stomach, legs folding beneath her. Her raised head swung from side to side, nostrils flaring and eyes becoming fixed as she spotted the calf. As she rocked, pushing herself up onto her hooves, Anduin scrambled back to give her room, slowly rising to his own feet. He turned to look at Nellie, the meditative calm draining from him as he stared into her tense expression, the skin of her face white beneath the thick coating of freckles.

It was then that Anduin finally realized that there was a great deal of noise coming from outside the barn. His heart stuttered in his chest in panic when he recognized the sound of many, many joints of grinding plate armor and the commanding shouts of soldiers.

Nellie’s face was also stricken, but it was more akin to disbelief than fear. She continued to stare at him as she set down her lantern on the floor and grabbed a nearby tin bucket, stumbling into the stall. She scooped up the afterbirth and dumped it inside, taking the bucket with her as she marched toward the barn door, leaving it partially closed.

“Coming through, got a new heifer inside,” Nellie’s voice was loud enough to be heard clearly from outside, the tin pail rattling as it was shaken. “It was a long hard birth, so if you would, don’t put any more stress on the mother than you have to. We can’t lose another animal this year--”

“I assure you,” an unfamiliar voice barked. “That if the Defias Brotherhood overruns your farm you will have far greater problems than dead cattle.”

Anduin stumbled, knees knocking against the floor as he scrambled to reach the stall where his things were, unfurling the roll of bandages with a frantic jerk. His fingers shook and he could barely manage to take a full breath, but by the time the first soldier made their way inside, his hair was pulled back and his face was covered. He kept his eyes pointed towards the ground as he struggled to steady his hands in his lap and dampen his heaving chest and shoulders.

“You there,” the soldier barked. “State your name and profession.”

“He’s a farmhand,” Nellie’s strict voice cut in before Anduin had a chance to pull his thoughts together and respond. “Can’t talk. War injury.”

The soldier’s white steel plate armor, accented in Stormwind’s familiar blue and gold, turned his head to sweep his gaze around the barn from the shadow of his helm. His iron blade was drawn and pointed at Anduin, still kneeling in the stall. Though his polished, silver armor bore none of the usual markings apart from a bronze lion sigil, from the faint glow of the blade, Anduin could tell that the soldier was a paladin. The paladin took in the sight of the mother cow, now on her feet and pressing her nose to her trembling calf, who was making her way onto small, unstable hooves in search of something to satiate her first pangs of hunger.

The paladin’s steel-adorned boots thumped down the length of the barn as he approached Anduin’s stall. Anduin bowed at the other man’s approach, his thoughts racing. For a moment, they stared at one another. Then, Anduin slowly lifted his hand to tug down the collar of his tunic, tilting his head back to reveal the thick lines of old scar tissue that crept up the side of his neck from where a piece of the Divine Bell had sliced and cracked it long ago.

“You have quite the collection of mutes on this farm,” the paladin observed, wryly, turning away from his inspection of the scar to direct his irritation at Nellie. “Answer the question.”

“His name is Jerek Jenkins,” Nellie said, folding her arms across her chest. “As I said, he’s our farmhand. Hired him a few years ago after he came back from the war.”

This seemed to mollify the paladin at last. He turned and made a sharp gesture to the soldier who had followed him into the barn.

“We are requisitioning this land to make camp and replenish our supplies. You are to surrender an inventory of every resource at your disposal to me by this afternoon. Our mage will be along in a few moments to see about preparing food using your stores. Return to the farmhouse and alert the peasant woman that she should prepare her hearth.”

Nellie’s voice came, cold but polite. “...yes, sir.”

She stole one last angry glance at Anduin before she was ushered outside, leaving him alone with the cows. The calf was contentedly latched onto her mother’s udder, seemingly without a care in the troubling new world she had found herself in.

* * *

Late in the afternoon, Anduin sat at the far end of the empty stall, his cloak drawn around his shoulders, the draenei bible spread open in his lap. He had helped pile more straw onto the floor so that most of it was covered. Nellie and Fae sat against the wall opposite of him, Adeline half-asleep in Fae’s lap. Her head was resting on Fae’s shoulder while Fae absent-mindedly ran her fingers through the girl’s long, dark hair, still crimped from the day’s braid. They sat in silence, listening to the sounds of the soldiers settling down in their camp for the evening and the cows mooing quietly to each other. The paladin had set up a strategy room of sorts in the farmhouse, claiming the bed for himself.

“They killed every one of the chickens,” Fae murmured. “As well as the rooster.”

Nellie nodded. She was braiding three long pieces of straw between her tense fingertips. A fourth piece was in her mouth, which she chewed. Her gaze went beyond the depth of her hands, almost to the tips of Anduin’s boots. She appeared to be deep in thought. Every now and then, her eyes flickered towards the harvester, looming in the neighboring stall like a sleeping golem.

“I think they’ll take the cows next,” Fae continued. “I heard them saying something about beef.”

Nellie threw the straw braid, where it became lost in the interlocking mess of pieces covering the ground. “Can’t be helped.”

“There aren’t even that many of them,” Fae persisted. “The paladin, three warriors and a mage. What on Azeroth are they even going to do with all of that meat?”

“The mage will use some kind of spell to put it on ice for storage,” Nellie grumbled around the straw in her mouth. “They’ve probably got more coming to join them. But five men can go through that much meat in just a week or two, if they’re hungry enough.”

Fae shook her head, tightening her grip on her daughter as she began to rock back and forth. “Noble pigs.”

“Hush now,” Nellie murmured. “Don’t need to give them any reason to be thinking we’re Defias sympathizers.”

“Well,” Fae’s tone dipped down to a low, dark pitch that made her seem like an entirely different woman. “We are.”

Anduin lowered his face as he felt Nellie’s green eyes leap up to glare at him. He turned a page, half-focused on the drawing of a draenei priest blessing and distributing loaves of black-crusted draenic bread.

Anduin did not sleep that night, lying awake and straining to listen to the sound of a soldier walking patrols on the grounds outside through a crack in the barn wall. The snippets of conversation he picked up were hostile. The soldiers seemed just as unhappy to be occupying the farm as the owners were with hosting them. Whatever campaign they were waging in the woods, it was not going well. Their voices were distant and muffled, though, and he could not puzzle out more logistics. 

Anduin stood up, restless temper coursing through his limbs, determined to go for a walk to see if he could gather more information about where they may have been stationed or if they were splintered from another regiment, but he found the barn doors chained shut from the outside with a padlock. His fingertips brushed the crack where the two doors met, contemplating a small smite spell that would melt the iron, but the sound of a soldier walking past drove the thought away. He returned to his makeshift bed far more sullen and angrier than before. Gunshots still peppered the night but as he lay glaring into the dark, the hours passed by with no further explosions.

The next morning he sat stewing over his bible, muttering a prayer out of the corner of his mouth to ease a nagging ache in his right hip, while Fae combed and braided Adeline’s hair and Nellie fetched bowls of grits and biscuits from the soldier who had arrived to deliver them. She spent some time talking to him in a tense, quiet tone before storming back to the stall carrying the tray of bowls.

“They want me to help organize and pick through all the tools and chemicals in the barn and shed,” she explained as she passed out the bowls. “Fae, the paladin wants you to mend some clothing. You.”

Anduin met Nellie’s direct stare as she passed him the last bowl, holding onto it for a moment longer so that he couldn’t take it right away. He held onto it, a muscle twitching in his cheek as he tried not to frown too deeply.

“I’ve talked them into letting you take Addy out to clean out our apple trees,” she said. “They want me and Fae here where they can keep their eyes on us, think they’re afraid of us running off, rightfully. They don’t seem too concerned about a farm worker with a limp getting very far with a one-armed girl.”

She leaned in a fraction closer, her glare hitting him with a fraction more intensity. “Take your time. Pick them slowly.”

Anduin gave a nod, lowering his gaze, feeling Fae’s eyes on them. His face burned beneath the bandages as he looked down and took his first bite of grits, the soupy grain tasteless in his dry mouth.

The orchard was a small cluster of thirteen or so trees at the outskirts of the property, right before the edge of the forest began again. He kept his head bowed and his hood drawn against both the wind and the soldier’s watchful eyes as he limped, carrying a woven basket in his arms. There were, indeed, only four of them working beneath the paladin. It was strange to find so small of a group wandering independently in the woods, most likely splintered from their larger regiment. A group of independent champions would not be so obedient to a commanding officer.

Adeline walked obediently beside him, dragging her small boots through the grass to keep pace with his slow limp that he was in no rush to push due to Nellie’s instructions. The ache in his hip was still stubbornly creeping across his body. He could tell from the metallic edge to it that brought the phantom memory of blood in his mouth that it wasn’t a typical pain but the Divine Bell’s unhelpful warning of the very real danger that now surrounded him. There would be no way to suppress it until he was away from both the farm and its occupiers, but Nellie was right. He would not be able to escape quickly without incapacitating the soldiers. And it was unclear how soon their fellow army members would be joining them.

The apple trees were easy enough to spot. In the gloom of the overcast, damp autumn day, the red spots in their boughs were like bright beacons. Anduin set the basket down and surveyed the crop while Adeline walked up to the nearest trunk and began to pick at the bark.

“Do you like climbing trees?” he asked.

Adeline was silent. With her back still towards him, he wondered if she was deliberately ignoring his question. He decided to leave her be and focused instead on inspecting the long, overreaching branches of their fruit. It was still early in the season and most of the apples were small, but he began to leisurely turn them in his hands, studying them and trying to pick out worms or signs of rot before twisting and snapping the thin stems.

A small scrambling noise caught his ear and he turned to find Adeline had grabbed hold of the lowest branch, pulling herself up and kicking the trunk with her boots. Soon she was straddling the branch, not quite smiling but no longer looking so angry either when she caught his eye.

“I’d join you up there, but I think I’m a bit too big to do that,” he said with a smirk. “I’d probably break the branch.”

Adeline ignored his meager attempt at light humor and began her ascent to the next bough, a few apples falling off as she jostled the limb with her heel. Anduin limped over to retrieve them, brushing dirt from the skins off on his breeches. When the basket was halfway full, he rested, using the Light to push back the encroaching stiffness that threatened to lock up every one of his joints. Adeline watched him like a hawk when he did so, like she was trying to pick out some trick he might not have revealed to her the other night when he had eased her phantom limb pain.

The trees bore a meager crop. Anduin only managed to just fill the basket before there was nothing left to pick. Adeline was still nestled in a tree branch and showed no sign of wanting to come down so he sat between the tree roots with his back pressed against the trunk and bit into one of the apples, tongue curling at the sour juice that spilled into his mouth. From the small orchard, the view of most of the yard was obstructed by the barn, but the hair on the back of his neck prickled at the sight of the paladin, standing near the remains of the chicken coop, watching him. Anduin pretended not to see and finished the apple, tossing the core into the woods behind the orchard.

“We should head back,” he said.

Adeline obediently scooted down, knees scraping against the bark. She jumped the last foot or so, stumbling and making Anduin instinctively lunge to catch the tumble that did not happen as she easily caught herself. She shot him a strange judgemental look at his frantic expression as he recovered.

“Are you alright?” he asked, anyways.

“Yes,” she replied, quietly.

Anduin hoisted the basket up with a grunt, letting the lower edge rest against his waist as he began to limp back towards the barn. Adeline dashed to catch up with him, staying closer to his elbow than she had on the walk outwards. The paladin was still watching, one hand resting on his hip, the other cradling his gleaming helm. His face was well tanned from a long summer spent outdoors, his black mustache neatly trimmed above his upper lip, long dark hair spilling out over his shoulders. Anduin would have perhaps considered the man to be handsome if they had crossed while attending service at Stormwind Cathedral instead of during an occupation of a local homestead.

“You. Bring those there,” the paladin commanded, pointing towards the porch where Fae sat peeling potatoes. She looked up and waved at them with the hand that held the knife. Adeline waved back, but remained close to Anduin’s side like a shadow until they were almost at the steps. She broke away to bolt toward her, leaving Anduin to finish the trek alone.

He set the basket down on the porch, next to the small sack of potatoes Fae was pulling from. The dog looked up to pant at him in happy recognition, thumping her long tail against the floor, and Fae gave him a small but genuine smile. One arm was wrapped around her daughter, who stood next to her with her head tilted over her mother’s shoulder. Her brown eyes were fixated on something in the yard. Anduin turned, letting his hands come to rest on the porch railing. He spotted two cow carcasses amassed by one of the soldiers and the mage, who were preparing knives for skinning and slicing the meat.

Anduin was no stranger to the routine, having seen it done many times in similar albeit larger camps of soldiers and even by his father while hunting, but this time it made his stomach churn and he pitched halfway over the railing, for one terrifying moment feeling as if he would be sick.

“Jerek?”

Anduin murmured a brief word in prayer to settle the churning in his gut and the feeling passed. He straightened, turning to face Fae. Even Adeline was staring at him with a look of concern.

“Should I check on the calf?” he asked, his voice sounding as if it were coming from far away.

Fae nodded, her brows furrowing. “If you would, they’ve been keeping me here. Poor thing’s been by herself all day. You don’t look well, perhaps you should lie down for a bit while you’re in there.”

“Yes,” Anduin heard himself say as he reached for his staff where he had left it earlier that morning. “Perhaps I will.”

He limped towards the barn, a strange ringing hounding his ear. He wasn’t sure quite when he realized that he was being followed, but as soon as he was within the dark threshold, he turned around, throwing his shoulders back and straightening his spine. The paladin stood before him, the other two soldiers flanking his stance.

The paladin said nothing, returning Anduin’s passive gaze with a look of intense scrutiny. He raised one gauntleted hand. The soldiers rushed forward. A prayer rose to Anduin’s lips, one that would blast not only the soldiers and the paladin but the very walls of the barn as well. It died the moment he spotted the calf out of the corner of his eye, looking back at him from the darkness. He let his staff drop and raised his hands to surrender to the soldiers. They grabbed him by each arm and marched him outside. His knee buckled, ankle sliding out beneath him, and they half dragged him the rest of the way to the middle of the yard, following the stride of the paladin.

The paladin turned around to face Anduin, who had fallen to his knees on the ground. The paladin folded his hands behind his back.

“I witnessed you channeling the Holy Light under the boughs of the apple trees,” he said, his voice betraying no emotion but a mere declaration of blunt fact. “And I have found the draenei text that you carry. Such a rare piece. So far from its home.”

Anduin said nothing. He continued to stare at the dirt beneath the paladin’s boots. The other man approached on heavy footsteps, each bend in his joint causing the plate armor to rattle. Anduin tried not to flinch as rough fingers came forth to tear the bandages from his face. The paladin knelt down, elbow coming to rest on his knee. At last, Anduin raised his gaze. The paladin did not seem surprised.

“You seem to have lost your way,” the paladin said. “Your Majesty.” 

The air around them crackled. A chiming noise sounded, quiet at first, but in a split second it grew to a loud tone trapped between Anduin’s ears. The ground at his knees snapped as from the core of his body a great pulse of Holy Light burst forth in a radiant golden halo. Anduin’s arms almost wrenched from their sockets as the soldiers lost their grip and were thrown backwards, including the paladin. All three of them hit the ground several feet away in a resounding crash of metal armor. 

Anduin pushed himself to his feet, staggering as the soldiers struggled to recover in their heavy plate. He extended his hand and shouted ancient words of condemnation, summoning a stream of vibrant pulsing light from the center of his gloved palm. Each pulse rocketed forward in a fizzling spiral, trailing white smoke as it found its target. The two stunned warriors were shoved even further backwards, the air filled with the scent of their plate turning to liquid over their chests, accompanied by their screams of pain. The paladin’s gauntleted hand was in the air, a spherical iridescent bubble absorbing the shock.

They circled one another, Anduin staggering every other step, the paladin maintaining a lithe succession of cross-steps, the sphere of Light moving with him. It grew dimmer with each passing moment. Anduin felt a prickle on the back of his neck and he raised his other arm as he pivoted, the white, shimmering oval shield rising just in time to deflect a beam of violet arcane energy thrown from the mage, who had withdrawn his wand from the other side of the yard.

“Surrender yourself, King Wrynn,” the paladin ordered, hand darting to his side to withdraw his sword. “Forces are amassing in Redridge to combat the treason in Stormwind City and mount every Defias head on a pike. If you submit to my authority, I will see to it that you are treated with sympathy as a prisoner of war who fled the chaos out of panic.”

Anduin’s eyes narrowed, his chin rising in defiance as he surveyed the field with his best attempt at a calm demeanor. The third soldier had also approached, although he stood at a farther radius than the mage and the paladin, looking less certain with his sword as magic and raw energy continued to fizzle in the air around him.

The barn doors burst open and with a whirr of gears accompanied by a horrible screech of rusted metal, the harvester emerged. It was unlike any harvester Anduin had ever seen prior during inspections of the gnomish workshop where the things were manufactured and the ribbon-cutting ceremonies when they were gifted to farmers. The golem-shaped armor had been reinforced with additional strips of iron and its joints moved with a fluidity that was not becoming of lumbering tools whose one purpose had been to harvest wheat and hay. The head had been torn completely off so that a shielded cockpit could be erected in its place, where Nellie sat hunched over the controls glaring out at the yard from behind a pair of thick green and bronze goggles.

Anduin dropped his shield and with a cry of damnation sent forth burst after burst of white holy fire from his extended, cupped palms. The mage raised his own shield but the succession destroyed the arcane construction, tearing through to their intended target. Behind him, Anduin heard the sound of both plated boots and the golem rushing towards him. He whirled around with another smite spell ready at his fingertips. Through the haze of the exploding white sparks, he saw the paladin’s sword arc through the air only to be caught by the long, knife-shaped fingers of the harvester. Anduin stumbled back towards the mage, his eyes burning as he beckoned a dark whisper that had been waiting just at the edge of his mind.

The source of the whisper responded and with a dark prayer of welcome, a dark shadow emerged from the earth beneath his feet. The shadow took form and Anduin swept his arm forward, pointing with two void-drenched fingers towards the mage, yards away, who was preparing a long and terrible cast. The void creature pulled itself over the earth at an alarming speed on long, wriggling tendrils. Anduin could not see its face but could see in his mind’s eye the dark gaping mouth. The mage launched its cast and in his panic, sent the arcane orb careening far off from its intended target. The void creature latched on, tendrils sticking like tar to the mage’s robes, crawling its way upward. 

The mage was now in a full-blown panic, arcane explosions causing the air around him to shimmer, screaming. Anduin stood with his arm still raised, his breathing becoming more ragged as he listened to the creature’s inquiring whispers. It watched with curiosity as Anduin’s thoughts turned towards the last time he had seen Wrathion, the dragon’s handsome face bloody and bruised, eyes just slightly wide with shock as he was locked back into the iron muzzle and dragged onto his feet. Anduin gave the silent command and the mage’s screams were abruptly silenced by the void creature’s tendrils snaking into his mouth.

The priest turned from the suffocating mage to face the paladin, who was alternating between beating upon the harvester’s extended arms and using his iridescent shields to parry the attacks from the knife fingers. Anduin took a short breath, prayed, and channeled the Light once more. The bubble burst and the full weight of the harvester’s blades thrust through, directly into the paladin’s collar. Blood burbled forth from his mouth as his greatsword fell from his hands and he collapsed, impaled upright on the arm. Anduin heard the mage drop to the ground behind him, and the whispers receded as the void creature faded with the wind.

Fae’s pounding footsteps heralded her as she ran from the porch, her skirt hiked up in her hands. She froze a yard away from Anduin, staring, her eyes wide. Nellie flipped open the hatch and emerged, gasping for breath as she tore her goggles from her red, sweat-drenched face. Anduin leaned over, bracing his shaking hands on his knees, struggling to reclaim his breath. The metallic smell of blood and residual void energy hung heavy in the air.

“Nell?” Fae’s voice trembled.

Nellie raised her thumb in the air, one leg thrown over the side as she began to climb down.

An explosion cracked through the air, making the trees and the glass in the window panes shake. All eyes turned towards the east, where once again a cloud of smoke began to rise ominous from the treetops, closer than the last one had been. Nellie took Fae’s trembling face in her hands and gave her a rough, deep kiss before wrapping her arms around, crushing her into a brief, fierce hug. Behind them, Adaline stood on the porch’s top most step, her hand clutching her braid, face white with fear.

“They’re getting closer to the Jenkins’ farm,” Fae said, her voice muffled from where it was buried in Nellie’s shoulder. When she looked up, she turned her head to peer at Anduin, eyes widening as her face contorted to match her daughter’s frightened expression.

“Your...Your Maj…”

“Please,” Anduin gasped, looking up at the couple through his matted blond bangs. “I am not the king any longer. I’m simply trying to make my way to Redridge.”

* * *

The soldiers were rolled in strips of tarp from the barn and stacked beside the cows. While Anduin gave the last rites and murmured other prayers over the corpses, Nellie made repairs on the harvester golem. Fae collected a few possessions and supplies from the farmhouse and shoved them into durable knapsacks. A rope was tied around the newborn calf’s neck, the leash end given to Adeline. The group struck out more or less down the road, Nellie in the harvest golem leading the way, Anduin bringing up the rear with his staff. Fae carried the rifle and walked side-by-side with Adeline and the calf. The border collie wove between them as she pleased, breaking off to investigate interesting scents in the woods off the path. They walked through the afternoon, and night was soon upon them with only the light from a lantern Nellie had hung on the front of the harvester’s chest illuminating the gravel path, gunshots ringing out from somewhere far away. Anduin kept a gentle hymn in the back of his mind to maintain a small orb of warm golden light in his palm that provided additional aid to prevent them from tripping over wayward roots and stones. 

After an hour, they reached the main road and took a right to head east. The dirt road was empty and dark with no more clues as to the source of the gunfire. When Adeline’s steps started to drag and her yawning became frequent, Fae carried her to sit on Nellie’s lap in the harvester, taking the calf’s leash herself. Anduin marveled at the small animal’s resilience, who maintained an almost eager pace with them on her skinny, two-day-old legs. On occasion, the calf would turn to glance at the light in Anduin’s palm, her black eyes reflecting it like twin stars.

Nellie brought the harvester to rest, at last, beside a bend in the road. There, a wooden signpost bearing the name _Jenkins_ with faded hand-painted veins decorating the border stood upright before a small flower-lined path. A house stood a short distance from the road, windows dark, obscured by a shallow line of trees.

“Looks like nobody’s home,” Nellie murmured before the grinding of the harvester gears drowned out any further noise. A man had emerged from the shadow of the tree, lowering the end of a long rifle. He had a great brown beard that ran down to his buttoned shirt collar, a thick pair of glasses shadowing his eyes. In the faint light of the harvester’s lamp, a dusting of sun-burnt freckles sprinkled his crooked nose and bony cheeks. He looked the harvester up and down, mouth closed, before at last giving a respectful nod to the driver.

“See you got that abomination running,” he grunted, his voice low and quiet.

“Sure did,” Nellie replied, leaning out the cockpit and letting her arm swing down from the elbow to give the side of the machine an affectionate pat. “How’re y’all doing out here?”

“We’re all down at Harlowe’s,” the man said, jerking his thumb down the road, further east. “Occupied the place. I just came back to fetch Jean’s medicine and see how the house was holding up.”

“We found a priest,” Nellie tipped her chin at Anduin, who lowered his head in a respectful bow, eyes flickering down from behind the wraps of bandages. “He’s traveling through, trying to get to a friend out past Redridge, but said he’s willing to come along with us for a spell.”

“Don’t know how close you are to your friend, but you might want to rethink that. Redridge is a bit difficult to get to now,” the man said as he made a cross-shaped sign over his head, chest, and shoulders in greeting, which Anduin followed. “How’re you doing, Fae? Is Addy alright?”

“We’re holding up. Thank you, Bo,” Fae replied with a nod of her head. “She’s fine, just sleeping up there beside Nell.”

The man grunted and adjusted his grip on the rifle. “Give me a minute to go in and see what I can recover and I’ll join you folks on your way down there.”

* * *

Harlowe’s turned out to be a small general store, located in a small strip of the road that was too small to be considered a town in its own right. The store had its own mailbox, though, and a water well surrounded by a smattering of houses interspersed between the thick rows of trees that doubled as small businesses. Painted signs designating the professions of the owners, tailoring, blacksmithing, leatherworking among them, in pictograms. The houses had small vegetable gardens and troughs of easy-growing pink, yellow, and white flowers. It would have been a peaceful, sleepy strip of land, under different circumstances.

Though it was very late at night, enough to be considered early morning, the area was clustered with people from all over the southeastern portion of Elwynn. Anduin listened closely as he stood at the outskirts of the crowd that was drawn to inspect Nellie’s harvester and discerned that most had fled from encroaching skirmishes or the approaching Stormwind militia. Many had lost their land like Nellie and Fae. 

A number of carefully watched bonfires were erected throughout the area to stave off the cold autumn night air. The border collie quickly trotted off to investigate the other dogs in the camp. The remnants of dinner, pots of a rich, generous stew concocted from diced potatoes and leeks from the general store’s cellar, were ladeled out for Fae, Nellie, and the still sleepy Adeline, who fell asleep over her bowl while sitting with her back pressed to the calf’s side where they lay on the ground. Anduin declined the food and quickly found a way to make himself useful tending to a handful of wounded refugees who had escaped from Redridge.

“It’s martial law,” a woman gasped as Anduin prayed to mend a fresh burn that ran in one long and bubbling red stripe down the side of her body from her forehead down to her hip. “They’ve taken the roads and are executing...anyone…”

While he worked, Anduin listened with one ear to Nellie, who was speaking with an elderly woman with a nest of iron gray hair. The woman had come up to greet her on the other side of the makeshift infirmary.

“...and he still hasn’t come out of there, yet.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Anduin watched the woman’s hand slip out from underneath her crocheted shawl to point towards one of the houses. The sign marked it as a tailor’s shop. A number of people loitered around the lawn, with one or two peering into the windows while sharing liquor from a flask.

“What’s the matter?” Nellie quiered, her brows furrowing.

“Some nobleman rode up the day before yesterday,” the elderly woman’s mouth turned downward in a grimace. “Riding from the western road like the devil was nipping at his heels. He had some kind of fancy elemental with him as a guardian, threatening to burn down the house if we didn’t give it to him. He’s boarded himself up inside and haven’t seen any peep of him since. Folks who saw him said he was stricken with some kind of plague...”

“I can help,” Anduin heard himself say, flinching at the sound of another distant explosion. He took a breath to steady himself and strengthened his voice. “I know how to guard myself from potential infection. What were the symptoms?”

The elderly woman folded her arms across her chest, as if protecting herself from the chill. “Light bless you, dear. I don’t really know, though, I just heard something about red eyes…”

Anduin’s heart leapt into his throat, a tremor washing over him as a memory of gentle red eyes glowing under the shade of the royal bed's canopy arose. He took a deep breath and tried to keep his voice calm: “If we can get him to open the door…”

“He won’t answer,” someone else said, grimly.

“We can break it down.”

Anduin followed a group of men and women who used an ax to break in the front door to the house and the thin wooden planks that had been poorly nailed across the doorway from the inside. He stepped inside the shadowy entryway alone, holding up a ball of light to guide his way, keeping his mouth covered with a bandana one of the other farmers had lent him.

“Hello?” he called. 

Nothing responded to his tentative greeting apart from the squeak of a rat scuttling across the counter from the open breadbox. The house was small, however, and it didn’t take long to find the body on the floor of the washroom. Anduin recoiled at the sight of Count Ridgewell, wrapped in a quilt huddled in the washtub, his wide, blood-filled eyes staring at the pipes jutting from the walls. His pale face was covered in uneven red patches of irritation that trailed down his neck and were lost beneath the collar of his fine linen tunic, stained with blood and bile. His hands were curled protectively over his chest. When Anduin tried to pry them away, he found them too stiff with rigor mortis to be worth moving to inspect the body further. A chill worked its way up his spine as he recalled Cynthia’s voice giving her description in the mailroom, and an elderly voice that was both familiar and not: _It was the best way we could think of, you see…_

An explosion that rattled the glass of the windows in their rickety frames nearly caused him to stumble and lose his footing. His heart began to beat as a soldier’s sense of calm kicked in. Not terribly distant shouts reached his ears and he tightened his grip on his cane to make the trek back to the broken front door. As if pulled by an invisible string, Anduin marched, his hood falling back from the greasy knot of fair blond hair tied at the back of his sweat-pricked scalp. As if from a different world, he observed the chaos that had befallen the small encampment during his time in the house.

There was an army approaching from the road in the west. He could spot the familiar, tight formation of armored horses and people in their plate armor, guarding a small band of mages in the center. Three paladin generals on golden white steeds tore ahead of the pack down the dirt-packed roads, kicking over the small tents and knocking over the remains of the pots of stew, turning circles around the men and women who brandished shotguns, pistols, and pitchforks. Anduin continued to limp, mind racing as he absorbed the chaos, one hand on his staff, the other resting on the cover of the bible by his hip, organizing each segment neatly in his mind, listening to the commanding cries:

“This region is under the jurisdiction of the Stormwind Militia. Surrender your weapons and relinquish your supplies, prepare yourself for interrogation on authority of Stormwind’s esteemed House of Nobles, may they live forever...”

A strange thunder crackled overhead, though there were no clouds. A hot wind whipped up and pushed the fallen autumn leaves from the ground in a wide vortex. At its center was Anduin, eyes glowing bright, white, as he raised his staff upwards to greet it. A veil of golden light descended upon the small encampment, enveloping it in its ethereal stream, trapping some soldiers within it, pushing the rest of the army out.

The stallions cried out as their paladin riders pulled at their reins, startled, stunned, stricken by the intensity and abruptness of the Light that now imprisoned them in its embrace. Anduin met their gazes with a calm, passive look, the strain melting from his limbs as he felt a hot fire burn from within. He heard the familiar, welcoming chimes of a naaru resound in his ears, their otherworldly prayers filling him with a strange kind of strength.

“ _Saa’ra, grant me strength,_ ” he murmured, watching the white riders turn about and gallop towards him with the speed he would expect from loyal Knights of the Silver Hand, their blades drawn and cutting through the night. “ _I surrender myself to your will and offer my bo---_ ”

The voice that rang forth blew away any train of thought, pushing back any ideas save for the golden shape of the naaru, spinning in its own holy orbit that attracted stars and lives to its gentle, burning embrace.

“ _ **I grant you a sliver of my eternal spirit, Lamb of Azeroth, and with it, in this moment, I put the armies of the twisting nether into your mortal hands.**_ ”

The blast that radiated outward from Anduin’s shield, prompted by the otherworldly scream that tore from his throat, rippled over the forest in a flurry of roiling branches and waves of dark golden leaves. A series of smite spells ripped from his fingers, white hot with the intensity of iron that had been held in a holy fire, striking each paladin and knocking them from their saddles in crisp, golden blows. Around him, the small army erupted into screams of chaos as iridescent flames tore through the ranks.

The final traces of Saa’ra’s prayer rang in Anduin’s mind like the tolling of gentle bells, their infinite gentleness bringing tears to his eyes, threatening to spill over down his bandaged cheeks: “ _It is not yet time for the mortals of Azeroth to turn their swords into plowshares._ ”

Then, it was done. The shield dissipated with the last trace of borrowed strength, leaving Anduin swaying on his boots. He heard the rush of hooves and whooping battle cries as a rainbow of horses rode up from the west, bearing riders wearing red bandanas. They swept like an ocean wave over the encampment, driving back the unburned members of the Stormwind militia into a frantic retreat, trampling the fallen beneath their rugged hooves.

Anduin fell to his knees, the staff clattering beside him in the dirt, the surface of the wood smoking and flaking ash. He swayed, a wave of nausea nearly driving the bile in his stomach up and out his throat as hot, unbearable pain streaked through his spent limbs. His vision swam behind flashes of black shadows as he sank into his boot heels, his cloak billowing around him. He only had the strength to manage two tasks: the first was to keep himself sitting upright and the second was to breathe. With glassy eyes, he watched the chaotic movements settle around him, the night growing strangely quiet considering the number of people assembled.

The riders of the Defias Brotherhood at first ignored him, guiding their steeds in such a way as to give him a wide berth, more concerned with the health and safety of the people who had been under attack. It didn’t take long for them to assess that there was no immediate danger and some of them began to gather in a wary ring around him, their veins still pumping with adrenaline. Anduin did not care to speak nor to move, suddenly fearful that doing either would chase off the last remnants of Saa’ra’s blessing from his mortal frame.

The riders who had chased the militia down the road caused a stir at their return, however, and it wasn’t long before the new group shattered the brief calm. Anduin felt the blood drain from his face as he heard a voice bark from somewhere in the throng:

“Where? Where is he? _WHERE IS THE PRIEST?_ ”

She stepped from the wall of the crowd that had gathered around him like a giant. The tails of her long, heavy coat swayed with each sure step that she took. It was a nobleman’s coat, black with gold embroidery up the sleeves and down the front, each and every button catching the glint of the torchlight. Her cold light green eyes glared down at him from over the brim of a folded red bandana, tied neatly around the lower half of her face. Waves of rich, thick brown hair fell down just past her jaw as if the wind from her long ride from Stormwind City still blew through them. Spurs jangled with each step that she took, packing the earth beneath her heels.

Vanessa VanCleef crouched before him, letting her wrists dangle lightly from the edges of her worn leather-armored knees. She studied Anduin for a long moment. He met her burning eyes with nothing but resignation, chest hitching as he struggled to breathe, his arms dangling limply into his lap. The sweat-drenched, dirt-caked bandages hung in a useless ring around his scarred neck, his hair half-fallen from its hastily tied ponytail.

Anduin doubled over, a choked cry bursting from his throat as Vanessa drove her fist into his solar-plexus, knocking what little wind he had right out of him. Veins of stars burst before his eyes, blurring her form as she stood up, iron fingers seizing a handful of his tunic’s front collar. He continued to choke as she yanked him to his feet, barking over her shoulder.

“Tie his hands and attach the lead to my horse,” she ordered, pointing to the nearest woman wearing a red bandana, yanking down her own so that her voice could ring, unimpeded, as it rose to a crescendo. “RIGHT! I need three volunteers to stay behind and help this lot! The rest of you, we continue on to Redridge! We don’t stop for nothing! We don’t stop for dawn! We only stop to tear down those _Light-forsaken blue-bloods_!”

A roaring cheer rose to accompany Vanessa’s fist, striking in the air as she strode off towards a tall black stallion. Out of the corner of his eye, Anduin glared at her back, face burning red as he strapped his staff to his back and held out his hands, allowing the woman to tie his wrists together with a length of rope, attaching the other end to the back of the saddle on the black stallion. He stood there, waiting, shifting from foot to foot while Vanessa made her rounds, checking in with the Defias members who would be staying behind. 

He spotted Nellie’s amber eyes in the crowd, her arm around Fae’s shoulder, rubbing the length of her arm. Adeline stood a distance to the side, kneeling on the ground and holding a bottle of milk within reach of the calf who was drinking greedily in front of her. The border collie stood next to them, pink tongue curling as she yawned.

“Thank you again,” Anduin said. “For your hospitality.”

Nellie dipped her chin in a resolute nod. Fae lifted her hand to give a small wave. Anduin smiled and managed to shift his hand enough in the tight wraps of the rope bonds to give a small wave back. Adeline let the bottle rest in her lap to lift her hand in farewell, a frown on her serious face.

Vanessa at last returned to her steed, spurs clinking as she threw one long leg over the saddle. She took hold of the reins and twisted around, sending a wave of fear through Anduin as she sternly peered down at him from the end of her nose.

“Comfortable, Your Highness?”

Anduin looked away. Her sharp, barking laugh made him flinch.

“Don’t look so dour, King Wrynn.” She leaned over and, with a rough hand, ruffled his hair. Anduin’s nose crinkled instinctively as she sent itchy strands of his long bangs brushing across his face. “You were headed that way, anyways, I expect.”

“Yes, I was supposed to be headed that way,” he said, quietly.

Her grip on his hair tightened painfully and she twisted his head, forcing him to look her in the eye.

“You were _supposed_ to not let yourself get caught.”

She spat, a generous, thick glob landing on the toe of his boot. He winced as she released him, shaking his head to try and undo the state of disarray.

“Try to keep up. I reckon I won’t very much mind dragging you the rest of the way,” Vanessa said with a wink, right before she clicked her tongue and gave a flick of the reins. “And mind his hooves. He’s a kicker.”

* * *

They did, in fact, stop for something that did not involve drawing noble blood. At the edge of the Three Corners, where the first sights of Lake Everstill’s dappled blue shores could be glimpsed on the horizon, Vanessa ordered the company to a halt. She sent scouts ahead, two down the Lakeridge Highway to determine the present state of Stonewall Keep and three to get as far as they could across the bridge to Lakeshire. She called for the rest to set up a temporary camp to double-check the weapon caches, look after the horses’ hooves and shoes, and ensure that everyone had proper food and water. A wagon laden with wooden casks of some kind of chemical used to make explosives was thoroughly inspected for defects. The Defias Brotherhood set to work sprawling out on both sides of the road with incredible speed.

Anduin was the honored guest at Vanessa’s small segment of the camp. She kept the lead of the rope that bound his hands tethered to the rotting fallen tree she sat upon while cleaning her pistols. Her vindictive eyes surveyed the former king as he clumsily bit through a piece of thick, salted beef jerky and washed it down with sips of water from her canteen. 

An hour passed with no sign of the scouts returning. Vanessa methodically disassembled her pistols, cleaning the pieces with a stained cloth. Her calloused fingers moved with deft practice, the nails lightly caked with dirt from the road. She looked somewhat less intimidating under the bright morning sun, her demeanor bright and cheerful when she answered questions that other members of the Defias brought to her. Anduin kept his head bowed when anyone approached, but apart from a few chortles and passing teases, he was left alone.

“How is Tess?” Anduin finally dared to ask.

Vanessa’s face moved with an unnamed emotion. “She’s back in Stormwind, holding down the fort.”

Fear gripped Anduin’s stomach and he wondered what Vanessa was leaving unsaid, but he was wary of pressing further questions. He decided to risk murmuring a small prayer. Vanessa did not protest at the sudden glow of the Light on his tightly-bound palms, so he continued to soothe the sore muscles in his legs.

The sun had almost reached its midday peak when the scouts returned with news that Lakeshire had been evacuated and its residents rounded up and taken to Stonewall Keep.

“It’s a ghost town now, General,” were the scout’s exact words.

Vanessa nodded, running her fingers beneath her clenched jaw as she studied the clouds in the bright afternoon sky. “We’ll take them from both sides, then, half of us from the north, half from the south. We’ll close in and push them east into the Swamp. Into the sea if we have to.”

Speed was now of the essence and Anduin found himself on his stomach, staring down at his tied hands dangling off one side of Vanessa’s saddle, his legs hanging off the other. Vanessa led her half of the group north, through the lake. They passed over the abandoned bridge and through the town of Lakeshire, where Anduin caught sight of burned buildings and doors flung open wide. True to the scout’s description, not a soul could be seen on the gunpowder-stained streets.

At the north end of the town, where the terrain became steeper and the fields more peppered with sunset-red stone, Vanessa broke her horse away from the pack, giving instructions to her second-in-command to carry on. Anduin’s stomach twisted into knots as she pulled up to a cluster of tall boulders, near where the main road split into a small trail.

Vanessa pulled Anduin off the horse and the priest landed heavily on his feet with a grunt. Her knife was at his hands, nicking him through his leather glove as she roughly sawed through the bindings at his wrists.

“You can heal that,” she said.

Anduin eyed her warily as he rubbed his wrists and stretched his shoulders. “...yes.”

Giving the hilt a deft twirl, Vanessa sheathed the dagger at the side of her hip and mounted the black stallion without further ceremony. As she adjusted her weight to get comfortable on the saddle, Anduin raised his hand and spoke a blessing. Vanessa’s brows arched and her hand instinctively went for the pistol at her hip as a white-blue light enveloped her. A cross encased in a circle of draenei runes ghosted her forehead as an ethereal bell sounded.

“May the naaru watch over you,” Anduin said as he completed the spell.

A smirk tugged at the corner of Vanessa’s mouth. Her eyes narrowed as she pulled her red bandana up over her nose before giving him a dark salute. 

“Death to the monarchy.”

With a click of her tongue and a fierce shout of encouragement, Vanessa urged her steed to kick up his hooves and break into a steady gallop. She thundered away, back towards the main road, where she was absorbed in the ranks of the Defias Brotherhood galloping at a steady clip down the road. Anduin lifted his thumb to the cut on his hand and murmured a prayer, channeling the Light to stay the shallow bleeding. He watched them ride until the last of their train was a speck in the distance and he stood alone at the base of the red mountains, a cold wind whipping at the back of his cloak.

* * *

The days in Redridge bore the full weight of autumn’s chill and the evenings grew increasingly bitter. Anduin made slow but steady progress through the winding northern mountain pass, using the Light to warm himself when it felt as if the winds were pushing right through his cloak and into his bones. The shelters he constructed to get through the nights creaked and groaned as the same gusts threatened to blow them away. Fresh bandages to disguise his face kept the worst of the autumn bite away from his skin, but his exposed lips quickly grew chapped. He tried to find spots to sleep off the path where crevices and brush would block the weather, but it grew increasingly difficult as the forest line slowly but surely receded into a true mountain pass. Walls of reddish brown stone loomed around him, carrying the echoes of distant hunting gnolls. Behind him, Everstill grew smaller and also easier to see as he made the slow, gradual ascent. Plumes of dark smoke rose from where Stonewatch was located, somewhere behind the cliffs of yellow and orange trees.

The path through the mountains was just as deserted as Lakeshire had been and it was some time before Anduin encountered another traveler. The echoing sounds of pickaxes and dwarven singing drew his curiosity to a nook just off the path. A group of dwarf miners from the Bronzebeard clan welcomed him into their camp. They invited him to join them for a lunch of campfire roasted savory sausage and frothing barleybrew ale in exchange for his services in healing minor cramps and bruises from their work mining veins of copper.

“If I follow this road, will it take me north, into the Burning Steppes?” Anduin asked as he finished tending to a twisted ankle. One final blessing receded from the no longer swollen joint, the Light fading from his palm.

“Oh, aye,” the miner said as he flexed his foot and tested the weight, green eyes squinting warily from beneath his thick black brows. “It’s more or less a straight shot. You’ll know when you get there. You’ll start to choke on the smell of sulfur.”

“It only smells when the geysers are active,” corrected one of his companions, who had an impressive array of pale blue tattoos across on the dome of his bald head. The thick braid of red hair swung from his chin as he turned to pour a fresh cold beer for Anduin from the wooden keg they had taken with them. “I’d be careful, though. The Steppes are dangerous these days. They say over the ridge, near the flaming mountains, there are signs of black dragons darkening the skies again.”

Anduin felt his heart soar. A lump built in his throat, but he swallowed it, giving the dwarf a respectful nod as he accepted the mug.

“Thank you, sir,” he said, clasping the container tightly between his gloved hands until his bare fingers turned white. “That is exactly what I’ve traveled to find.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check out this jaw-droppingly amazing painting of Anduin crossing the Redridge mountains that was inspired by this chapter and based on the painting _Christ in the Desert_ by Ivan Kramskoi: 
> 
> [In quiet contemplation](https://twitter.com/Raven_Queen13/status/1333080620554014721?s=20)
> 
> And also follow Raven, the artist, for more rad Warcraft fanart: 
> 
> [@Raven_Queen13 on Twitter](https://twitter.com/Raven_Queen13)
> 
> [thatzsoraven on Tumblr](https://thatzsoraven.tumblr.com/)


	8. Heaven and Earth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, the biggest thank you I can muster goes out to [Laeviss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laeviss/pseuds/Laeviss) for beta reading and editing. Thank you!
> 
> And thank you for reading <3

My beloved do you know  
How many times I stared at clouds  
Thinking that I saw you there

\- VNV Nation  


* * *

_Some many months ago…_

Since the armistice after the Fourth War, the deepest cell blocks within Stormwind City’s stockades saw very little activity. They were small, isolated rooms constructed miles beneath the earth, where the most discrete prisoners were held. The halls were mostly quiet except for the occasional scuttle of rat claws on the damp stone, or a barely-perceptible rumbling from a strange tectonic shift in the earth. If one’s ears were sharp enough, attuned with precision far greater than any mortal’s, one could just make out the sound of the tide pounding against the edge of Stormwind Harbor and the waves pushing seawater through the roads of long canals that fed the city. Such a pair of ears listened from behind the rusting iron bars of one shallow cell, where a lone pair of glowing, smoking red eyes penetrated the darkness.

Wrathion remained still in the shackles that bound his wrists and ankles, all locked to a length of chain that both attached to the collar around his neck, sitting with his back pressed to the cold, damp stone wall. His limbs were stiff and sore, the iron gag attached to the muzzle strapped to his face leaving a terrible taste on his tongue, but he chose not to move. The meager arcane wards stamped into the iron would have perhaps given a lesser dragon some trouble, Ebyssian may have even taken a moment or several to free himself, but to an Aspect of the Earth, attuned to each and every mineral, the heat-treated iron would have snapped like paper beneath their claws. He had only to put his mind to it. If nothing else, the thought distracted Wrathion from the vision of Anduin’s pale, thin face, burned into his memory from the brief glimpse of it he’d caught during his escort from the House of Noble’s court.

The dragon’s keen ears pricked at the sound of quiet footsteps approaching. Soon they were accompanied by the sight of a long shadow beyond the cell door, skipping in the flickering torchlight across the hallway floor. A wiry man walked past, dragging a rickety wooden chair and a paperback book with him. He barely gave the cell’s occupant a glance as he settled down with his book just to the side of the cell, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee, shifting until he found a comfortable position. The human man looked somewhat familiar, though Wrathion couldn’t place his claw on where he had surely seen him before. His gray-tinged, copper-red hair was neatly brushed and his beard shaved to a distinct point on his narrow chin. He was dressed in a nobleman’s simple black silk tunic and pants, the sleeves rolled up past the elbows to show his sinewy forearms dusted with freckles and a thin sheen of sweat that caused the fabric to stick to his chest. The top two buttons of his tunic were undone and the ends of an unknotted cravat draped down from his neck like an unwound scarf.

They sat there for quite some time, Wrathion watching the man from the darkness, the man absorbed in his book. The dragon wondered if he stared hard enough, he could provoke some kind of reaction. His mortal stomach clenched, but he was not hungry. Then, more footsteps. Heavier, this time, and accompanied by the jingling of a noisy belt buckle.

King Genn Greymane stepped into view, still dressed in the same fine silks he had worn at court earlier that day. A large blunderbuss pistol with a fine wooden handle and golden embellishments dangled from his palm, the end pointed towards the stone floor. His blue eyes were focused on the man in the chair, who closed the book over his hand as he turned his sharp profile towards him.

“Good evening, Spymaster,” the words curled from Greymane’s lips like a curse.

The wiry man in the chair inclined his red-tipped chin in response. “Good evening, Your Majesty.”

For a moment, neither moved. Greymane’s chest rose and fell in time with his strained breaths. At last, Greymane slid the pistol into a holster beneath his jacket, adjusted the folds over his vest, and walked back out the way he came, his heavy footsteps receding into the distance. The spymaster opened his book and resumed reading. Wrathion felt his heartbeats begin to settle again.

There were no windows in the cell and it was difficult to judge the passage of time. Wrathion decided to mark the days by the moments when the spymaster slept, laying across the length of the cell door with his head resting on a rough, folded blanket, originally brought with a change of clothes by someone dressed in blue and brown leathers. Greymane returned, often, with no pattern to his visits. Each time he carried the pistol, ready and loaded in his palm. Each time he left after meeting the spymaster’s judgemental green eyes. If he happened to come during a time when the spymaster was asleep, the sound of his boots would wake the red-haired man at once.

Wrathion himself did not sleep. An old draconic survival mechanism had kicked in and he found himself only dozing on occasion with one eye open, iris turned towards the door. He had done this numerous times before, both in the Blasted Lands and especially on Draenor. His pulse slowed and his decreased metabolism curbed his hunger. The tasteless, chunky gruel the humans brought him was not nearly enough to nourish his energy but he ate what he could.

The longer Wrathion sat, absorbing the chill of the gritty stone into his shoulder blades and spine, the more he could feel the walls of the cell itself move like an illusion. He turned a spell around and around in his mind, a series of simple thoughts that would have made the stones buckle and crumble. The Stockades would cave in like a castle of sand as he rose to greet the open sea air, spreading his black wings in flight. But everyone held captive within would surely be killed or injured in the resulting collapse. 

And the guilt would drive King Anduin to despair.

Wrathion’s thin patience was stretched to its limit when the spymaster finally left, relieved of his guard duty by a kaldorei who wore a similar leather uniform and kept their long, wild hair tied back in a tight ponytail. When the freckled spymaster returned, he hid his leathers beneath a plain traveling cloak in the company of five plate-armored guards. The dragon glared at them over the brim of his iron muzzle as the cell door was unlocked and they fanned out before him in rigid formation.

“Prince Wrathion, Aspect of the Earth and Leader of the Black Dragonflight,” the front-most guard announced. “You are to be escorted to the border of the Kingdom of Stormwind. From there you will be released and set free to do as you please. Any attempt to re-enter the territory will be taken as a declaration of war--”

Wrathion let the words wash over him. He rose to his feet, sharp pain streaking through his stiff mortal limbs with each movement. He let the guards take hold of the chain dangling from his collar and lead him out of the cell, through the maze of mold-poisoned hallways and stairs. Outside, the summer sky was dark above the flickering glow of the oil lamps. Somewhere, the stars moved on their nightly orbit, though he did not care to look. He remained focused on the wagon waiting for them, pulled by two black stallions and a driver with a dark brown hood pulled over their head. Wrathion hissed around the bit in his teeth as he was pushed to the floor, the collar and the fetters locked to bolts screwed into the bottom. A tarp was laid over him, and he struggled to remain calm as he took steady breaths through his nose. 

Somewhere beyond the dark plastic weave, he heard the spymaster arguing with the soldiers. Eventually they boarded the wagon and riders settled on additional horses that neighed and pawed at the cobblestones in an attempt to alleviate unsteady nerves, The wagon lurched beneath him, the collar choking his neck as his body rolled, and the wheels began their journey away from Stormwind City.

Despite his attempts to stay awake, Wrathion dozed beneath the tarp, fitful dreams of acid eyes stroking his mind as soon as he relinquished it to the sweet embrace of sleep. The worst dreams were of Anduin, sitting at the edge of his bed, freshly bathed, and looking up to greet him with a soft smile before he was devoured by a writhing mass of thorny black tentacles. Occasionally, the corner of the tarp was pulled back, and the red-haired spymaster would be there to offer food and drink, which the dragon refused with a glare.

Days passed and the wagon came to its final rest. The tarp was pulled off completely. Wrathion’s pupils slitted against the light of the midday sun and he heard the sound of keys scraping in locks and rough hands handling his stiff limbs. He attempted to take purchase of his surroundings as he was dragged over the back of the wagon and onto the red dirt. The sky above was clear, blue, and cloudless. Red cliffs rose all around. Wrathion noticed that the wind blew colder than it did down by the lower shores and the strange smell of sulfur tickled his nose. As soon as the last few irons were removed, the humans around him scattered, walking backwards with their weapons drawn and aimed at him. Even the spymaster seemed tense, staring with wary green eyes from where he sat atop his black stallion, reins pulled taught in his alert hands.

Wrathion turned on his heel and shifted, kicking up a storm of dust and gravel as his great sunset orange wings unfurled with a rustling of sable scales. He contemplated snatching up the wagon in his claws and letting it drop from a great height, smashing the wood and raining splinters down on the soldiers. The smell of the terrified horses’ sweat stopped his claws and he rose, unburdened, into the open sky.

He hurtled forward through the air, chest burning with an ethereal, unbearable heat. It was almost too much, the sudden abruptness of his freedom, settling once again into the skeletal frame that was truly his. So different from the delicate mortal shell that could not only easily be chained and contained but also caressed and held…

Wrathion shook his great, horned head, as if he could physically wrench the memory from his consciousness. In the distance, a column of smoke caught his wandering eye. He careened, his entire body tilting to catch the wind and push him towards the west, where a towering black mountain stood higher than the surrounding peaks.

* * *

A dry, desert breeze swept across the earth in Silithus, bringing with it the iron scent of dispersing azerite particles. In the early morning darkness, the air visibly glittered with it: a blue and gold dust that flew about in gossamer eddies and currents. If one stood in the right place, one could even hear it: a rippling melody that chimed like vibrating glass. When the winds died, they left the gory dust to settle on the ground, coating it in the residue of the sleeping Titan’s blood. Even the individual blades of crisp green grass that now grew around the entirety of the Wound were tipped with azerite. When seen from above, the young fields looked like a shimmering sea with the druidic tents and moonwells dotting the surface like small, drifting boats.

Ebyssian took careful steps through the growth, his thick hooves trodding down tufts of grass that sprang back up in his wake. He tried to avoid the wildflowers: their soft white and goldenrod petals looked as delicate as some of the kaldorei newborns the druid parents had brought with them to Magni’s camp. The wake of Teldrassil’s ashes had brought with it a resurgence in night elf births. Ebyssian treasured the sight of them, the dozens of little dark purple and blue faces that would peer out from their swaddling blankets as they clung to their parents chests or backs. The tips of their soft, small ears that would glow when they happened to catch a sunbeam. Their large moonglow eyes that would blink and widen at the small bursts of azerite that floated by them in the air. The dragon was certain that there would never again be a time when he could see so many young night elves congregating in the same place on Azeroth and he wanted to cherish the gift.

Ebyssian’s path brought him to the outskirts of the field, then atop one of his favorite rocky outposts, a cliff in the sand dunes which afforded him a wide vista of the flowers, the moonwells, and the Wound itself. He removed a glass-blown pipe and a grinder from a beaded leather pouch at his waist, packing the bowl with a pungent but spicy smelling herb. The herb had been negotiated from one of the kaldorei in exchange for his own mountain-grown stash. As an afterthought, the dragon added a sprinkling of azerite dust from a woven enchanter’s pouch. He brushed a large finger over the hand-sewn pouch, feeling a melancholic pang strike his chest, before snapping it. With a spark of combustion, a small white flame sprung from the fingertip, and he used it to smolder the mixture in the pipe, leaf curling to red, azerite-laced embers as he inhaled.

Ebyssian studied the Wound, exhaling and inhaling deeply. When it caught the moonlight, the smoke glowed in the tell-tale blue and gold colors of the same azerite vents that gushed from the base of the sword. The dragon’s eyes flickered up to the sky. He froze, letting the delicately blown pipe smolder from where it perched in his large hand. After a moment, he rose to his hooves, still staring upward.

Smashing through the gravel and sand, Ebyssian ran down the slope of the hill and out across the dark dunes. He galloped towards the spot where the ebon-colored dragon with the orange wings would land. A hot wind blew through Ebyssian’s mane, rattling the bones and beads that decorated his great antlers. In the space it took the younger dragon to take two smooth strides, Wrathion shifted into his mortal form. He was missing his coat and sash, his hair unkempt around his shoulders and beard not as well-trimmed as he normally kept it. Dirt and dried blood stained his wrinkled, white tunic.

“Ebyssian!”

The familiar, confident smile Wrathion attempted did not quite reach his wide, shining eyes. The red smoke flickered and shimmered from his irises like a mirage, wisping into the starry night.

“Wrathion.”

Ebyssian reached out to welcome his brother into an embrace, but the Earth-Warder caught his tauren-shaped mortal hand, squeezing it with an otherworldly strength instead. A cold tremor ran up Ebyssian’s arm, and he struggled to shake off the feeling of uncertainty before it took him too deeply.

“Brother, you’re hurt.”

Bruises puckered Wrathion’s handsome mortal face, skin and beard smeared with half-washed blood. Ebyssian tried to touch a mechanical-looking patch of irritated skin on his brother’s jaw, like something had been clamped there for an extended period of time.

“What hap—?”

“We need to talk,” Wrathion interrupted, clasping Ebyssian’s reaching hand. His fingers shook. “Somewhere private.”

Ebyssian hesitated, before nodding, antlers tilting forward and back.

“Of course.”

They made their way to Ebyssian’s tent, drawn at the outer edge of the Cenarion Circle’s encampment. Wrathion barely seemed to notice the new grass beneath his boots as they walked. A bright, light blue gleam caught Ebyssian’s eye and when he turned his great, antlered head to look, he saw Magni standing at the edge of the small canyon that led to the Titan portal to the Chamber of the Heart. The dwarf’s crystalline face bore an otherworldly expression of concern. Ebyssian raised a hand half in greeting, half in a gesture of caution. Magni halted his approach, the strands of his strange beard coming to rest and the fiery white light of the Wound’s vents reflecting straight through him. He watched the draconic brothers enter the large canvas tent.

Wrathion kicked off his boots at the entrance, clasping his hands behind his back as he padded across the woven red, yellow, and black rug. Ebyssian took a seat atop a cushion, carefully laying his pipe to rest on the small span of hide mat where he normally took his meals. Using a flame from his finger, he lit a small oil lamp on the floor. Yellow light spilled from the glass orb, pushing most of the shadows to the farthest corners of the tent. Wrathion remained silent as he stared at the maps of geographic azerite veins hanging on the canvas wall.

“Please, sit,” Ebyssian said, gesturing to the empty spot on the rug before him as he retrieved a hand-carved wood totem from his traveling trunk. “Let me tend to your wounds.”

Wrathion complied, crossing his legs as he joined Ebyssian on a nearby pillow, hands dangling limp in his lap. His brother reached for the chafed skin on his jaw line with one hand, taking a small wooden totem into the other. Ebyssian began to chant, quietly. Blue light spilled across their laps and the leather hide mat as a thin stream of water rushed from Ebyssian’s palm. Wrathion flinched in surprise, but remained mostly still as the healing stream began to soothe his wounds.

“You’ve improved,” Wrathion noted, a hint of pride in his voice.

“Ah, yes, a bit,” Ebyssian conceded with a deep hum. He brushed his thumb across Wrathion’s jaw. “Tell me, now, what’s happened to you?”

“Stormwind’s House of Nobles has ruled that the Black Dragonflight is no longer welcome in their kingdom,” Wrathion recited, his voice devoid of emotion, as if he were reading from an uninteresting pamphlet. “Any attempt our flight makes to cross into their territory will be taken as an act of war.”

Ebyssian let out a small, annoyed grunt. “Well. That’s unfortunate for the Speaker, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Wrathion whispered. “Indeed. It is unfortunate.” 

“And what of Anduin?” Ebyssian probed, moving down to check his brother’s arms and wrists. He continued to pray, washing Wrathion’s limbs in the cool, spiritual waters. “He cannot possibly have agreed to this?”

“The king does not have a choice,” Wrathion’s hoarse voice cracked on the word _king_ , his claws twitching in Ebyssian’s hands as the older dragon soothed the irritated skin and scar tissue on his wrists. “ _Anduin_ is forbidden from maintaining personal relationships with any dragon, platonic or otherwise. It seems the nobility consider it too great a risk to have their king so close to one of our kind. If he is found with me again, he will be stripped of his title and imprisoned for the rest of his life. Or worse. And you and I will most likely be killed in the resulting dragon hunt.”

Ebyssian lowered his brother’s hands, his chants quieting. The blue light faded and the inside of the tent became dark once again.

“I am sorry, brother,” the older dragon rumbled.

“No matter,” Wrathion replied, his voice hollow. “There are more pressing issues at hand that require my attention.”

Ebyssian nodded, attempting to mask the doubt from his face. “I suppose Magni, at least, will be grateful to have your undivided attention on repairing the Wound again.”

“The Wound will not be healed.”

For a moment, Ebyssian felt his two draconic hearts stop.

“I know the situation seems dire,” the older dragon began. “But, you should see the progress we have made in your absence--”

Wrathion’s mortal hand sliced through the air in a silencing motion, which Ebyssian complied with. The younger dragon rose and paced the length of the tent, his bare feet barely making a sound across the soft rug.

“The first law of motion is that an object will remain at rest or stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force,” Wrathion explained. “And so it will be with Sargeras’ sword. What force on Azeroth can match that of a Titan’s arm, the arm of the former champion of the Pantheon?”

Ebyssian, after a moment’s hesitation, said: “Nothing.”

“Precisely.” Wrathion ran a hand down the length of his beard, pulling it taut to its point. “The sword will stay right where it is, embedded into the world-soul Herself, for the next several thousand years. Over this time, the azerite veins will seep into the material of the blade itself, starting at the pools which now consume the tip, thousands of miles below our feet. The azerite will work its way upward until the entire sword, from tip to hilt, is crystallized into a kind of mountain and the Wound will seal itself. Sargeras’ sword will then cease to exist, transformed into just another limb of the great Titan Herself.”

For a while, Ebyssian said nothing. He then blinked and his groping fingers reached for his pipe. He lit the herbs once again and inhaled, deeply. The tent soon filled with the smell of the azerite-laced herb.

“I am sure that you reached this conclusion through sound methods,” Ebyssian began. “Forgive me, but, how certain are you?”

Wrathion shook his head, not bothering to push back the hair that whipped over his shoulders and across his face.

“This is not an invention of my mind,” he said. “But a scientific prophecy from Azeroth Herself. She has sung this to me, Ebyssian.”

The older dragon lowered the pipe, setting it on the ground. He clasped his knees, his giant knuckles whitening beneath the thin fur that covered the backs of his hands. For a moment, he simply stared at the patternless scratches in the leather mat before him.

“Brother...”

Wrathion raised a hand, his eyes wide, the red glow illuminating the ceiling of the canvas tent above him. “I am well aware of how ridiculous this sounds.”

Ebyssian stroked his chin. “Is Magni aware of this?”

Wrathion shook his head, hands resting on his hips as he turned to glare at the wall. “I am not sure.”

Ebyssian closed his eyes for a moment, his shoulders heaving with a sigh. “Brother, are you absolutely certain that it was the voice of Azeroth…”

“ ** _I know the difference between the song of a Titan and the whispers of an Old God._** ”

The two dragons glared at each other across the space of the narrow tent, which was quickly growing warm from their combined body heat. Ebyssian, at last, nodded.

“I trust you,” the older dragon said, gently. 

Wrathion’s shoulders slumped. His hand rose to rub at the lines of exhaustion that cradled his eyes.

“Wrathion, please, have a seat,” Ebyssian urged, gesturing again to the empty pillow. “Perhaps I can fetch something to eat. There is a vegetable garden now, you should taste the--”

Wrathion shook his head and resumed pacing. 

“As I was saying: I am sure that the Cenarion Circle can do much good in Silithus, but putting more of our efforts into this land is wasteful. We are not attuned to it and it is far too chaotic to be useful for furthering our education in tapping the forgotten essence of the Black Dragonflight.”

Ebyssian took another toke from his pipe, exhaling. “I cannot say that I disagree. But...”

“I propose that we abandon Silithus,” Wrathion interrupted, twisting on the balls of his feet to stare directly into Ebyssian’s eyes. “And return to Blackrock Mountain.”

Ebyssian’s eyes widened. “In the _Eastern Kingdoms_?”

“Yes,” Wrathion gesticulated with his hand as if he were directing an invisible classroom. “I’ve just come from there to make an initial assessment. The upper spires require...a considerable amount of cleanup, but it is far from being inhospitable. And the mountain itself is attuned to the ancient, shamanistic magics of our dragonflight. I can feel it, Ebyssian, even now, the sheer amount of power that courses through the magma…”

“Wrathion.” It was Ebyssian’s turn to interrupt. “When was the last time you slept?”

The Aspect’s eyes widened for a fraction of a second, then settled into a frightening glare.

“I have spent weeks languishing in a cell under the foul streets of Stormwind.” The words expelled from between Wrathion’s clenched teeth. “And months before twiddling my thumbs and eating enchanted pastries in Dalaran. I do not require _rest_.”

Ebyssian held his pipe between his teeth while he raised both open palms in a deferential gesture. When he returned the pipe to his hand, he said: “Very well. Blackrock Mountain.”

The older dragon sighed and turned to stare at the small trunk, which kept his few possessions, mostly clothing from Highmountain, wood-carved totems, bundles of teeth, bones, and mineral crystals he used in divination spells, spices, and hide-bound books. A fine woven blanket depicting the snow-capped mountain range, a gift from Mayla before he left, covered the entire thing.

“You are the Earth-Warder,” Ebyssian said. “Leader of this dragonflight, and my brother. If you think it wise for our flight to return to one of our ancestral homes, then I will gladly support your decision.”

Wrathion’s shoulders slouched, his red eyes bright but weary. “We need a home, Ebyssian. Stability. N’zoth was defeated, but it may not be long before another Old God decides to rise from below. Azeroth cannot be left undefended. Over the next thousands of years, a great deal of her energy will be put towards healing the Wound. During this time, she will be more vulnerable than ever. We must ensure that there will be future generations of black dragons to defend her from the encroaching whispers, long after we both are gone.”

Ebyssian froze, his head snapping up. “The time of dragons is done. When we die, there will be no more black dragons.”

“Why would Azeroth bestow the mantle of Earth-Warder onto another dragon if our time is truly done?” Wrathion retorted, swaying as he stepped closer. “If she no longer had a need for the black dragonflight to defend Her?”

“I do not know,” Ebyssian admitted. “But...Wrathion… _how_? You are infertile and I cannot...”

“The eggs,” Wrathion raised his hands, cupped as if cradling a precious bundle. “The dormant ones in Neltharion’s vault in Highmountain. We will incubate them.”

Ebyssian heaved a sigh, turning the pipe between his fingers, watching as reflections from the oil lamp’s flames danced across the surface. “We do not know for certain if it is even possible.”

“We will try,” Wrathion struck his fist into his open palm. “We will go to Blackrock, re-establish it as the seat of the Black Dragonflight and I shall build a research laboratory. If nothing else, those eggs will have a proper resting place, instead of rotting forgotten beneath Highmountain. What say you, Ebyssian?”

In the silence that stretched between them, Ebyssian tapped his nail against the bowl of his pipe. He grunted.

“I say yes.”

“Excellent. We leave tonight.”

Ebyssian sputtered, his hard-won calm once again shattered. “ _Tonight?_ ”

Wrathion folded his arms and inhaled sharply through his nostrils. The red light in the tent flickered as he narrowed his eyes. Ebyssian heaved a sigh, turning his gaze towards the flap at the tent’s entrance. Somewhere beyond, Magni would be returning to the Chamber of the Heart to see to his first early morning communications with the sleeping Titan. The Speaker never slept, but he would remain in sleep-like meditation until the first rays of dawn cracked over the mountains.

“Very well,” Ebyssian conceded. “Tonight...er, well, this morning, I suppose.”

Ebyssian let out a great sigh, perching the stem of the pipe at his lips once again. 

“I am with you, brother.”

The Earth-Warder stepped forward, into the ring of lantern light. He bent at the waist, his bare hands coming to rest beneath the other dragon’s jaw, and he tilted Ebyssian’s head up to meet his as he brought their foreheads together in an embrace.

* * *

The Burning Steppes were dry and hot in late summer, the high mountain ranges preventing the cool sea breeze of the western shore from reaching the terrain. The sky was bright blue and cloudless the day Wrathion and Ebyssian’s shadows darkened the black silt and ash coated ground, streaked with rivers of sluggish glowing red and yellow lava flows. Ebyssian’s great serpentine form trailed after his smaller brother’s, leaving the hard work of finding the winds to him. He merely had to follow and catch the drafts in Wrathion’s wake as they made their way to where the tallest mountain sat surrounded by a self-made natural lake of molten lava.

With a scuttling clatter of dragon claws, Wrathion landed on the balcony that marked his preferred entrance to the Blackwing Lair, where Nefarian’s broken throne crumbled atop a black and white marble mosaic. Ebyssian landed a moment after with a far more tectonic _thud_ that caused the old tiles to tremble. Torn remnants of faded white banners, stained grey from decades of exposure to the volcanic ash carried by the wind, flapped overhead. Rusting iron braziers carried pieces of oiled charcoal from bonfires long past. The braids of gold that accented the stone carvings and pillars were dull and chipped. Ebyssian paused to observe what looked like a small shrine of piled stones near the entrance.

“One of my agents passed away here,” Wrathion explained without prompting, shifting into his mortal form. His black claws brushed the top-most stone as he passed through the dark, iron doorway into the mountain.

Ebyssian followed on his lumbering hooves, nostrils flaring at the oppressive scent of dust and… _rot_. A terrible weight settled on his chest and he found himself reaching for a small string of wooden prayer beads at his belt, his large fingers running across them. An old shaman’s prayer in the Highmountain dialect crossed his mind. Wrathion continued his relentless march forward beneath the iron gate, his footsteps echoing through the broken hall.

They descended into a grand foyer decorated with utilitarian plates of iron and stone carvings. The dust on the floor was broken only by the scuffled footprints of recent wayward adventurers, though how recent could not be ascertained. Twin dry fountains carved into the shapes of dragon heads faced each other from opposite ends of the chamber. A great barred gate, flaking with orange rust, opened up to an even larger space, where Ebyssian could make out what looked like thick chains with hooks dangling from the ceiling. At the ends of most of the hooks, something was hanging, great organic hunks with long tails and translucent wings…

Ebyssian ran his fingers across his jaw, murmuring a brief shamanic prayer into his cupped palm.

Wrathion came to rest in the center of the space, one hand on his hip, the other drumming across Succession’s hilt in its scabbard dangling from his waist. What little light there was filtered in from broken stained-glass windows that lined the top of the chamber and its rays revealed cobwebs and air filled with the dust kicked up by their boots and hooves.

“We must clean out the chambers first,” Wrathion said. “The spires, this lair, and the laboratories, of both the bodies and any vermin that may have taken to nest in the neglect. We should also take inventory and will most likely need to draw our own floor plans, if I cannot exhume anything useful from the libraries or Nefarian’s old study…”

“Perhaps it would be best to get something to eat first,” Ebyssian suggested. “And get some rest, start fresh tomorrow morning. It’s been a very long flight, and you’ve done it twice in the past several days.”

Wrathion shook his head, dust scattering about him in a halo. “I am not hungry, nor am I tired. Rest if you must, but I will get started without you.”

Ebyssian grunted, scuffing his hooves over the gritty stone. 

“Very well. Let us begin, then.”

* * *

The seven corpses hanging from the iron chandeliers in the Vault of the Shadowflame were the first to come to rest. Ebyssian hovered, beating his giant wings in an unsteady rhythm while Wrathion worked to remove the hooks. They laid the unnamed dragons to rest on the mosaic tile floor of the vault, where the remnants of Onyxia and Nefarian were once salvaged. For a moment, Wrathion and Ebyssian simply stood, staring at the sight of them. Ebyssian stepped forward and knelt beside the closest one. He began to chant, quietly, under his breath. Both the sounds of the incantation and his deep breathing grew louder and more strained until at last a flowing stream of mist ran across the length of the body, returning to his hands.

“These are black dragons,” Ebyssian murmured, wiping sweat from his brow. “Died...of asphyxiation, the weight of their own bones crushing their lungs as they hung there. The Old Gods are truly malevolent, to persuade Nefarian to treat his own kin so cruelly.”

As if a spell had been broken, Wrathion stepped forward, kneeling by the corpse’s head. He gently closed the dragon’s lids over her rotting eyes.

“We must give our siblings a proper burial.” 

Wrathion’s voice was burdened by a solemn resonance, quivering on the final consonants as he stroked the fragile scales on her brow. Rigor mortis had frozen it in an eternal expression of pain. He took in a breath to steady himself, settling onto his heels to provide relief to his shaking knees. 

“There is so much death in our flight’s history, and there will inevitably be death again. We need some kind of ritual...some process with which to honor and to grieve. Too many of our kin have been left to rot on the face of Azeroth without anyone to cherish their memory.”

“The Highmountain practice such rituals,” Ebyssian mused. “There are ways that they prepare the bodies for burial...rites that are spoken, oils for anointing, candles lit to guide the spirit home to their ancestors...”

 _”Yes.” Wrathion recalled his impatient voice, clever and quick, biting through the early morning air as he drummed his claws across a scar on a pale, freckled shoulder blade. “But what is the_ purpose? _What is it_ for _? The dead do not truly appreciate such displays, do they?”_

_“Only the Light knows,” came the patient response. “...well, and maybe the Loa. But, funerals aren’t really for the dead. They’re mostly for the living.”_

“Most mortals of Azeroth do such things,” Wrathion agreed. “And so should we.”

At the base of Upper Blackrock Spire were a great series of furnaces and kilns along with a generous set of blacksmithing tools and a series of anvils, all collecting dust. Using some clay taken from the base of the mountain, Wrathion fashioned urns and fired them until they turned black, glistening with an iridescent glaze when held in certain light. Ebyssian said prayers over the bodies before they were burned. They lined the urns on the floor to rest until they had decided where to keep them.

“We should have some kind of graveyard or catacomb,” Wrathion mused as they returned to the Descent, red eyes flickering warily towards the ceiling. “Some private space with which to go to reflect and honor our dead.”

Wrathion had not seen such a space in the Lairs, though. His mind turned towards Stormwind’s graveyard, the fields of well cared for grass, flowers, and trees. Wrathion recalled Varian Wrynn’s towering seaside monument where the salt and the breeze had tugged at his hair and clothing. He recalled Tiffin Wrynn’s humble, floral-encased tomb, the scent of the moist earth sharp in his nostrils beneath the cool shade of the maple trees. It was difficult to imagine such spaces within the hot, rocky tunnels of Blackrock Mountain. It was difficult to imagine anything soft and comforting thriving within the dark iron and stone constructed structures built by the corrupted Black Dragonflight.

They pressed on into the Crimson Laboratories, the next priority item on Wrathion’s haphazard list. He did not know how to phrase the situation to Ebyssian, but he suspected that the remnants of Nefarian’s experiments would be the biggest source of rot in Blackrock Mountain and the sooner they attended to it, the better. Spending a day laboring in the overwhelming muggy heat had cracked Wrathion’s mortal temperature limit and the white spellcloth now clung to his chest in the sheen layer of sweat that covered his skin. As they made their descent to where Wrathion guessed the laboratories began, close to the heart of Nefarian’s lair, he rolled up his sleeves and conjured a band to tie his hair away from his face. Ebyssian was in a similar state, his fur spiking, and he shed layers of leather and bone armor from his chest.

The red, iron door had rusted shut and it took a considerable amount of effort to break through. Wrathion decided to melt the hinges. As he pressed his hands to the metal, his vision clouded and cold fear shot up his spine at the sound of whispers. The words were not, he realized, the frenzied guttural ramblings of Shath'Yar, but draconic spoken in an familiar accent, one that he still could not emulate as well as a whelp of the Black Dragonflight who had spent time hearing it from within the shell. Wrathion’s brows furrowed and before he could stop himself he began to listen…

_”No more. No more. Help me die.”_

_”...my arms...my legs...please don’t leave me like this.”_

_”I...I don’t want to be alone anymore. I don’t want to be alone in the dark.”_

_”Oh Titans, Titans kill me.”_

“Wrathion.”

A hand, a real hand, settled on his shoulder, grounding him. The Earth-Warder shook his head and completed the spell, gathering the molten metal into a spherical shape as it pooled into his hands. The door toppled forward and the stale air within rushed to meet their faces, saturated with the stench of decaying flesh.

Ebyssian shuddered, stifling a moan with his hand, turning to lean against the wall. Wrathion gritted his teeth and squared his shoulders, brows narrowing as he blinked back hot tears. He muttered a spell and collected a handful of fire, cupping it in his palm and holding it aloft to light the way.

* * *

Perched on the top-most peak of Blackrock Mountain, Wrathion sat with one knee pressed to his chest, the foot of his other leg dangling off the edge. The cool wind tugged at his hair and clothing, ruffling the sweat from the threads. He glared at the horizon, rubbing his beard and murmuring to himself as he thought. The sound of beating wings caused him to flinch and he struggled to regain composure before Ebyssian found his footing, the heat from his massive, overworked body sending ripples through the air.

Wrathion closed his eyes and muttered a quiet curse under his breath as Ebyssian turned his great head in the direction that his brother had been contemplating. It was a clear evening and beyond the Burning Steppe mountain range, the emerald summer canopy of Elwynn Forest could be seen, just before a glinting white stretch of stone, the parapets of Stormwind Keep and the Cathedral of Light. The blue-green ocean cradled the human city, which looked so small and peaceful from this distance. It would have only taken an hour or two at most to cross the physical distance by flight.

A rumble like quiet thunder stirred in Ebyssian’s chest. Wrathion felt a flush rise to his scale-flecked cheeks as the drake turned his gaze downward. Concern cupped at the scales beneath his dark, brown eyes.

“ **Are you absolutely certain this is where you want to be?** ”

Wrathion rubbed at his face, pressing his fingers to his brow. When his voice came forth, it cracked, but he managed to keep his tone steady.

“...I think I ought to get some rest.”

* * *

Like most dragons, Nefarian enjoyed the comforts that could be had in his mortal form. Above the laboratories and the lair were a series of private chambers built into the uppermost peak of the mountain. They were unfinished, Wrathion discovered, nudging aside old canvas coverings to find half-chiseled hallways and the beginnings of possible rooms.

One of the hallways led to a surprising room with a glass ceiling and walls, jutting out the side of the mountain in a hidden crevice. Squinting upwards, Wrathion discovered traces of spells that he guessed were used to keep the delicate structure free of snow and ash. Ebyssian shuffled amongst the strange, dirt-filled troughs, running his fingers through the dry, crackling remnants on top.

“These are dead plants,” he determined. “Well, well, it seems old Nefarian had a bit of a proclivity for gardening.”

“Indeed,” Wrathion murmured, warily eyeing a dry stone fountain with delicate fish bones lining the bottom.

There was a handsome master bedroom adjacent to Nefarian’s old study and library and a series of smaller living quarters that Wrathion guessed were used for other prominent members of the dragonflight and their consorts or servants. Judging by the furnishing, they were clearly intended to house mortals, though all of them were big enough for the form of a fully-grown drake to move around more or less comfortably.

“This one should be yours,” Ebyssian said, cheerfully as he craned his neck to look around the large bedroom. Wrathion lingered by the giant glass doors that led onto a considerably sized balcony, large enough for a dragon to use for take offs and landings. “You are the Prince of Blackrock now, after all. Hm?”

Wrathion did not crack a smile, his frown deepening in stubbornness as Ebyssian chuckled the words _Your Highness_ to himself as he lumbered towards the bathroom. Tightening his scowl, Wrathion turned on his heel and followed him. There was a gigantic in-ground bath that took up most of the room, also large enough to hold a full-sized dragon, and more windows that overlooked the Burning Steppes. A beautiful red and yellow sunset shone through. Ebyssian knelt by the pipes and turned the largest knob. A great, screeching rattling sound banged through the entire setup, causing them both to jump. When it was clear that no water would be coming out, Ebyssian mercifully closed the valve again.

“They pumped water up here somehow,” Ebyssian gauged, rising to his hooves with a grunt. “I’ll take a look around the area sometime. Until then, we can fly north when we need a drink. Perhaps tomorrow. I could use some meat soon.”

Wrathion nodded, but remained silent. Ebyssian did not press him for further conversation and left to examine the rest of the living quarters for one that he would find suitable. Wrathion stood alone in the bedroom, back to the sunset as he faced the ornate, black iron four-poster bed. The dusty mattress was gigantic, clearly made for a mortal who did not intend to spend their evenings alone.

Wrathion threw open the windows to the balcony, filling the musty air with the warm evening breeze. He set fire to the mattress. He dragged the burning thing across the stone floor and tossed it over the edge, staring down at it as it fell down the length of the mountainside, taking chunks of rock with it as it ricocheted and spun off the sides. Next he tore apart the bed frame, melting it down until it was a deformed twist of spiraling splintered branches. He threw the pieces over the side as well. 

The chamber was left considerably emptier without the bed, and Wrathion’s footsteps echoed as he walked. He took shreds of the satin sheets and quilts, torn up the pillows, and set out the beginnings of a nest in the middle of the floor, where he curled up in his draconic form, laying his head to rest near the tip of his tail, as the last rays of the sun were swallowed by the rocky peaks on the horizon.

* * *

With a gasp, Wrathion jolted upright, rolling onto his stomach, his claws digging into the thin layers of cloth and scraping at the tiles on the bedroom floor. It took him moments to recognize where he was, and the disorientation left him in a fog. He had slept too long, the sun was so high in the sky it seemed it was late afternoon once again. He rose to his feet and padded into the hallway, pausing to stretch out his stiff spine from tail to head. The nest would need significant modifications; sleeping on a few pieces of cloth on a flat hard floor did not seem to agree with him.

Wrathion’s nostrils flared as he investigated the living quarters. One of the farthest rooms had traces of Ebyssian’s lingering scent and, curiously, four tree trunks leaning against the wall, but the elder dragon was nowhere to be found. A sweep of the lair turned up no trace of him and Wrathion shuddered at the thought of entering the laboratories alone at that moment when he was still only half-awake. He checked on the furnaces and then returned to the living quarters, where he shifted into his mortal form and began to investigate Nefarian’s study.

The desk still held research papers and open books that Nefarian was working on before he died, some kind of chimera experiments which involved splicing organs in the respiratory system. Wrathion shut the books and tucked the papers inside, fighting the wave of nausea that rippled through his gut. He strode into the adjacent library, which was bathed in the warm glow of the afternoon sun streaming in through the tall windows. A significant amount of books were written in draconic and dwarven, though his eye caught a few in the human’s common language and a scattering of very delicate looking titles with Titan glyphs stamped on their crumbling spines.

Wrathion’s time spent in Karazhan had drastically skewed his perception of what counted as an inconceivable amount of books, and he found the disarray in Nefarian’s library utterly unremarkable. He set to work counting the shelves and assessing the commonality of their contents, if any. Nefarian’s method of organization seemed to vaguely revolve around topic, with a bizarre tendency to order by book spine color. An initial perusal of the titles betrayed the black dragon’s fascination with biology. 

When Ebyssian returned, he found Wrathion seated at a window bench, absorbed in a draconic anatomy book, a stack of other titles at his feet.

“ **Ah, there you are,** ” Ebyssian rumbled, taking care to maneuver his massive body around the shelves. “ **It seems sleep has done you some good, you’re looking much better.** ”

Wrathion raised his hand and allowed Ebyssian to bump the end of his snout affectionately against the knuckles. “I confess that I am still not feeling quite like myself just yet.”

“ **You must eat,** ” Ebyssian rumbled. “ **I’ve brought you back a pair of goats. There is a river to the north. It seems to be the nearest water source. It is about a two hour flight...though, you are in better shape, perhaps you can do it quicker. If you’re thirsty, you should stretch your wings a bit.** “

Wrathion opened his mouth to protest, but his stomach clenched and he relented. “Thank you.”

The goat carcasses were waiting in the broken hall. Ebyssian lounged on the stairs and picked his teeth with a sharp bone while Wrathion roasted the meat until it was charred. He gnawed it from the goat skeletons, slurping up the heart and lungs. He turned what he did not eat to ash.

“ **I took a short flight around the western portion of the Burning Steppes this morning** ,” Ebyssian explained while Wrathion feasted. “ **Water is in short supply in this region, and of course, wildlife. I found the goats near the river. The Dark Iron clan must be getting water from somewhere, though. I saw several farms with plenty of livestock and greenhouses. My suspicion is they are using wells, but naturally I did not want to startle them by flying close enough to look for them.** ”

A liver slid down the back of Wrathion’s throat with a gulp. “ **A wise decision. We must do our best to first recover what we can from the laboratories and the spires. Then I will work on drawing out floor plans and sussing out the plumbing situation.** ”

The next several weeks were spent recovering all of the abandoned bodies from the laboratories. The quantity of urns near the furnaces grew for lack of a proper resting place. Wrathion and Ebyssian argued about what to do with the laboratories once they were finished. They were reluctant to fill it in or to seal it off, but neither did they want to try to repurpose the still gore stained cells and work benches just yet. In the end, they left it exactly as it was and agreed to reassess the ground at a later date. 

Wrathion led the trek downward through the spires. The Rookery was the most difficult area to make their way through; it was littered with the remains of hundreds of young whelps spliced from breeding experiments between captive red and black dragons. Wrathion slid into a kind of daze as he fashioned a stretcher that they could use to carry groups of the small bodies and uttered words of encouragement to Ebyssian, who broke down weeping at the sight of them. The Earth-Warder spent the night, restless, on top of the mountain, staring at the shimmering glowing smear of Stormwind City’s thousands of lamps as the wind whipped his fragile mortal limbs until they were cold and numb. He did not want to close his eyes for fear of what the nightmares would bring.

The biggest surprise, however, was descending into the lower spires to discover the equally surprised faces of an ogre clan that had taken up residence in the dusty chambers. They apparently were unaware that they had spent the past month living beneath the Black Dragonflight. A long, arduous conversation in broken Common turned into a heated debate when Wrathion fumbled his phrasing on a blunt suggestion and this evolved into an outright brawl. When the walls of the atrium were charred with fresh scorch marks, the ogres decided that they did not, in fact, want to stay after all and began packing up their encampments.

A short while later, Wrathion was investigating the remains of what appeared to be an extraordinarily ancient library while Ebyssian exhumed some kind of dining hall, when a distant rumble drew closer. Wrathion swept into the main antechamber, hand cupping a palmful of flames that flickered with each long stride, Ebyssian trailing behind with a similar ember on his thumb. At the far end, the two dragons were met by the grim, ashen faces of a group of heavily armed Dark Iron dwarves, spilling in through the main gate.

For a moment, no one spoke.

“Yer causing an awful ruckus up here,” the dwarf at the head of the formation said, gruffly, at last. Her yellow eyes glittered from beneath dark tattooed eyelids, her thick black braids glowing with an enchanted molten-red luminescence at the tips. In her hands was a thick iron rifle, aimed at Wrathion’s head.

“Our sincerest apologies for the disturbance,” the Earth-Warder replied with a small bow. “The Black Dragonflight sends its regards to the Dark Iron clan.”

Not a single dwarf moved, although a few began to mutter to each other in the rear of the formation. None of them lowered their weapons. Wrathion’s claws twitched as the pads of his fingers began to heat up again, a bead of sweat rolling down his temple. The heat of the mountain was far more prominent in the lower spires than it was in Nefarian’s old lair.

The dwarf at the head of the formation hacked up a considerable amount of spit and with an angry noise, sent a glob of it shooting through the air, where it landed at the curled, gold-tipped toes of Wrathion’s leather boots.

“Yer apology is not accepted,” she declared, raising the barrel of her gun a fraction higher, directly at the spot between Wrathion’s eyes. “This here is Dark Iron territory, and you lizards are trespassing on it.”

Heat rushed to Wrathion’s face and his claws inter-locked as he closed his fingers into fists. He was about to draw fire to his palms when he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder.

“Brother, please,” Ebyssian murmured. Wrathion could smell the sweat of fear in his fur.

A late-night memory came to him, of Anduin hunched over his desk, loose hair aglow in the candlelight. He refused to rest until he had perfected the language of a peace treaty with the groups of Forsaken still stubbornly inhabiting the few remaining un-blighted forests Lordaeron. 

_Phrasing is everything,_ Anduin had explained, when asked why he couldn’t leave it and come to bed. _Even the slightest word can offend a hostile party if used in the wrong context._

Wrathion exhaled, clouds of thick black smoke shooting from his nostrils. He loosened his fists and let his hands rest uncurled by his sides.

“We have no intention to quarrel with the Dark Iron clan.” He did his best to keep his voice smooth, level, and calm. “We simply wish to inhabit our family’s abandoned lairs and to put the tormented souls of the dead there to rest. We are all reasonable creatures of Azeroth, surely we can come to some sort of agreement?”

A long walk later, spent mostly at the end of several polite but insistent dwarven swords and guns, found Wrathion pacing in a slow, measured circle around the floor of a cell adjacent to the Ring of Law. In some ways, it was more pleasant than Stormwind’s Stockades. Instead of the sickening, dank odor of mildew, there was the more or less comforting scent of a furnace. The cells were quite warm, as well. The entire city was, in fact, since it was situated below the mountain, closer to its fiery core. But it reeked of the lingering stench of terror from its former prisoners.

Ebyssian’s voice wandered in through the slotted hole in the solid iron door from his own cell on the opposite side of the hallway. “This is a bit ridiculous. We are both reasonable dragons, are we not?”

Wrathion hummed in half-hearted agreement. With his hands tucked in the pockets of his silk pants, he continued to take step after careful step, heel touching toe, measuring out each stride as he pondered the situation. Deep in the bowels of Blackrock Depths, the power of the mountain’s magma core was so close he could feel it reverberating in his bones. He could reach out to it, if he wanted to. It wouldn’t take much to reactivate it, like a pot just about to boil, just an almost negligible amount of pressure that he could generate if he gave the earth around it a little push…

The sound of footsteps approaching drew Wrathion’s attention to the door. His pupils shrank at the sudden flood of torchlight in the doorway, unable to pick out any features of the figures standing there masked in black shadow. He turned to face them, hands still in his pockets, forcing himself not to squint and to keep his expression blank as he waited for his eyes to adjust.

“Dragon, you stand before Moira Thaurissan,” the herald at the rear of the formation announced, slamming the butt of her spear against the stone floor. “Queen-Regent of the Dark Iron clan.”

The dwarf at the center of the group came into focus. Her stern face was framed by long, reddish-brown hair, partially pulled back into the dwarven style of intricate, thick braids, bound with black pins, carved clasps, and a simple iron crown. She bore the faint scent of arcane; she had most likely stepped through a mage’s portal recently and the ethereal residue still clung to her hair and clothes. Her green eyes betrayed no expression as she studied him from over the top of her square nose.

Wrathion did not remove his hands from his pockets as he bowed, stiffly, at the waist. “It is an honor to meet you, Queen Thaurissan. Allow me to introduce myself, I am Wrathion, the Bl--”

“I know who you are,” Moira interrupted. “I’ve certainly heard enough gossip about you over the past year to fill a lifetime. What I’d _rather_ hear is an explanation for why you’re now in my mountain waging war against my people.”

Heat flushed Wrathion’s face and his shoulders stiffened. “Let me assure you that the Black Dragonflight has certainly not declared war on the Dark Iron clan, Your Majesty...”

“Really?” Moira clasped her hands behind her back, squinting up as she took a step forward. The red glow from Wrathion’s eyes spilled over her lightly freckled cheeks. “Are you suggesting that there’s some other dragonflight responsible for the very recent and rude attacks on the Feldspar Ogre clan, who live in the mountain under my protection?”

Wrathion ground his teeth, choking on his next sentence. Moira continued to glare at him, waiting for some kind of explanation or excuse.

“If Your Majesty is referring to the ogres who were camping in the Lower Spires,” Wrathion said with care. “My brother and I discovered them squatting on Black Dragonflight territory.”

“In the Black Dragonflight’s negligence and absence, the lower spires have been reclaimed by the Dark Iron clan for use by the Feldspar Ogres in exchange for an open knowledge share between their mages and shamans and ours,” Moira responded, her voice sharp and curt. “You, _ser_ , were, in fact, the one who was trespassing.”

She took another step forward, her eyes darkening. “You’ll forgive my curiosity, Your Highness, but why is the Black Dragonflight suddenly interested in Blackrock Mountain again? What could possibly be more important to the Earth-Warder than aiding the Speaker, Magni Bronzebeard, in healing Azeroth’s grievous wounds?”

Red light flickered across the dark cell walls as Wrathion’s gaze swept over the dwarven guards, their weapons drawn and ready to protect their queen. Glittering, angry eyes looked back at him with a combination of anger, awe, and...humor.

Wrathion threw back his shoulders, lifting his chin a fraction higher. “Our talents are, regrettably, not useful to the Speaker’s work in Silithus at this point in time. Our presence from this point on would only be a hindrance to the more capable and experienced hands of the Cenarion Circle.”

Moira did not bother to hide her suspicion as she squinted.

“At this point in time, it is the Black Dragonflight’s intent to cleans the grounds defiled by Deathwing and put to rest the many tormented souls that died within those walls,” Wrathion continued. “From Nefarian’s ashes, we seek to rebuild the Black Dragonflight and restore our family’s legacy as guardians of the earth.”

For only a fraction of a second, Moira’s eyes widened with shock and Wrathion felt a small twinge of pride at having taken her off guard.

“How do you mean ‘rebuild’?” she asked. “In the Twilight of the Aspects, it should be impossible for dragons to reproduce.”

“It remains to be seen if there is a way for my kind to lay eggs,” Wrathion admitted. “However, there are many, many dormant ones, carefully tucked away in old, hidden nests. It is my intention to recover them and begin experiments to restart the incubation process.”

“So there are no bairns up there now?” Moira’s gaze flickered downward, as if she expected to see a tiny whelp hiding behind Wrathion’s legs in the cell.

“No, there are not,” Wrathion said. “Although, I’m sure Your Majesty would not expect me to disclose if there were.”

“You’d certainly be foolish to leave them unprotected,” Moira retorted. “And I see no reason at this time to take the Earth-Warder for a fool.”

Wrathion realized, in that moment, that there were most likely a great number of Dark Iron dwarves combing through the rest of the mountain, searching through the upper chambers and Nefarian’s lair, taking notes to bring back to Moira. The momentary feeling of overwhelming helplessness and rage almost consumed him, but he took a steadying breath and quashed it.

“We’ve no interest in whatever horrors lurk above Lower Blackrock Spire,” Moira continued, folding her hands over the front of her floor-length dark maroon skirt. “You’re welcome to have those haunted grounds back if you can stomach them.”

Wrathion bristled. He took a steadying breath. “Your Majesty is most generous--”

“You and your brother are free to go lay your dead to rest. And I’d like to personally invite you both to join me tonight as my guests of honor for a feast, celebrating the Black Dragonflight’s return to Blackrock Mountain.”

Wrathion’s mouth remained open as a trail of smoke wisped past his lips. He closed his jaw, staring into the sharp green gaze, looking back expectantly. There was no sign of malice but no sign of friendship, either. Somewhere, in another nearby cell, Ebyssian cleared his throat.

Wrathion loosened his limbs and folded one arm in front of his waist, tucking the other behind as he dipped into a formal bow, his shadow crossing over and melting into Moira’s across the ash-stained stone of the cell floor. “Your Majesty, the Black Dragonflight accepts your gracious invitation.”

* * *

Moira offered Wrathion and Ebyssian use of her personal guest chambers to freshen up after their stint in the Ring of Law. The two brothers spent most of the time soaking in the rich heat of the steaming bath, scented with cedar and cloves, and examining the pipes sticking out of the walls. Ebyssian attempted to divine the water’s source through a shaman’s seeing-eye, meditating at one end of the tub while Wrathion did his best to freshen up their garments using what little enchanter’s dust he’d had in the pouch at his belt at the time of their capture. Almost a month of working in Blackrock’s immense heat had not been kind to either of their mortal clothes. When Wrathion was about to tear his hair out in frustration over the armpit stains, one of Moira’s servants arrived with a small but impressively varied selection of freshly laundered robes and tunics for them to assemble dinner outfits from, along with a selection of bracelets and necklaces.

“There seems to be some kind of well in the mountain,” Ebyssian mused, at last, eyelids fluttering as he came out of his trance. Steaming water streamed down from his fur as he rose, accepting the towel that Wrathion handed to him. “But it’s far too small to be the only source of water for the entire city. I doubt Nefarian’s pipes extend all the way down here.”

“Perhaps he tapped into another pipe system that does,” Wrathion countered, tying his red and gold embroidered sash over a long, charcoal-gray tunic that almost reached his knees. “With any luck, we’ll have the fortune of speaking to an engineer at the banquet.”

The great, dark dining hall in the Blackrock Depths was so full of noise and music that it made Wrathion’s ears ring the moment he and Ebyssian stepped within it. The fires burned full and fierce from the great pits in the center of the room, throwing deep shadows across the floor and ceiling, the corners of which were almost completely black. The Dark Irons did not seem to require much light, their glowing eyes casting small flashes of illumination across each other’s faces and plates. Moira did not rise to greet them from where she sat at a great long table at one end of the hall, facing the great fires. She raised a stone wine goblet to herald their approach, rings flashing on her hand in the firelight. The table had two empty seats to her right, which Wrathion and Ebyssian took.

“This is my son, Prince Dagran,” Moira gestured to the young dwarf who occupied the seat at her left. He gave a nod of his head. His skin was warm grey and he had small black tattoos on his cheeks beneath his green eyes, the same color and shape as his mother's. He wore his long, white hair mostly loose down to his shoulders, a single thin braid keeping half of it tucked behind his right ear.

Wrathion bowed his head, almost knocking into the servant who reached over to fill the goblet at his place setting with a wine so dark and red it made his nostrils itch as he smelled it pouring from the bottle. “It is an honor to make your acquaintance, Your Highness.”

“The honor is mine, Earth-Warder,” the young dwarf replied, his red eyes gleaming as he quietly returned the greeting. For some reason, Wrathion’s hearts twitched at an old memory of Anduin, greeting members of the Horde and the Alliance at a formal dinner on the Timeless Isles. The twitch turned into a dark spasm at the dwarven prince’s next words, spoken quietly but not quiet enough to escape his draconic ears. “Mother, is this dragon King Anduin’s suitor?”

The look on his face betrayed his shock and he was not quick to recover before Moira shot a cautious glance in his direction. She cleared her throat.

“He was,” she explained, diplomatically, while Wrathion reached for his goblet and took a long, steady drink of the first alcohol he’d tasted in months. “If you would, please, go greet your godmother. She’ll never let me hear the end of it if I whisk you back to Ironforge before she’s had a chance to measure how you’ve grown.”

Prince Dagran rose to his feet without protest and disappeared into the hall’s dark shadows. Wrathion stared down at his plate, which had been laden with a bloody portion of some kind of steak and a heaping pile of fried potatoes and carmelized golden onion slices. His stomach clenched with the overwhelming scent of dwarven spices. His dry mouth began to water through the acid aftertaste of the wine.

“I’m afraid my son has shown my hand rather too early,” Moira’s voice bore a weighted sigh as she, too, took a generous drink of wine. “I have a great deal of questions for you, Black Prince.”

Wrathion continued to stare beyond the bonfires, towards where the band was beating unrelentingly at their leather drums, accompanied by almost mournful piped instruments. “I am not certain that I will be willing to answer them.”

Moira was silent. Ebyssian began to tear into his food and struck up a conversation with the dwarven knight who sat to his right-hand side. Wrathion left his wine untouched as he leaned into his elbow, stroking his beard as he studied the flames.

“King Anduin means a great deal to the dwarves of Ironforge,” Moira said at last. “And to my family, personally. Though our cities remain connected by an Alliance and even an underground tram, it’s difficult to peer through this dark veil of secrecy that’s been drawn around Stormwind City. I ask, Earth-Warder, if you would please tell me the truth of what’s happened to our dear High King.”

Wrathion took a deep breath. Beneath the heavy smell of the bodies and the food and the fire was the unmistakable salt of the mountain. It smelled like home.

“I only have so much to tell,” he began. “I fear I have been kept as much in the dark as anyone else in the Alliance on the matter...but I will share with you what little information I have.”

First helpings turned into seconds turned into thirds. Both Wrathion’s immense appetite and craving for mortal cooking was satiated over the course of retelling the sequence of events that led him to Dalaran and then to court before the House of Nobles. Moira interjected only to ask questions about details, particularly about the rulings. By the time he had finished, a dessert of rich dark chocolate pudding was being served, topped with black cherries and peaks of whipped vanilla cream so thick it was almost a mousse. Prince Dagran returned and sat quietly, listening intently though his astute eyes were focused on his place setting.

“You explicitly heard the words that he was reinstated as High King,” Moira pressed, for the third time. Her pudding sat untouched and melting slowly in the warmth of the room.

Wrathion curled his tongue, savoring the sweetness. “I did not. This was told to me before I was taken to Redridge Mountains.”

Moira spun a thick, ruby-set ring around and around the pointer finger of her right hand, jaw clenched.

“Anduin should have attended the Midsummer mass at the Netherlight Temple two weeks ago,” she said. “He did not, nor did he send word that he intended to be absent. The priests that did show up from Stormwind didn’t have much to say about it, but they were behaving oddly, like they were frightened of something. One mentioned to Mariella Ward that he was undergoing some kind of strict penance, but couldn’t give the details.”

Wrathion felt as if a cold hand had tightened around his throat. He put his spoon down and reached for the closest glass of water. Floating minerals flickered in the firelight as he raised it to his lips.

“I suspect he’s being detained, somehow,” Moira mused. “High Tinker Gelbin Mekkatorque agrees with me. He’s sent a number of letters to King Anduin, with some kind of private code that the two of them share written into them. If Gelbin gets a response at all, there is no encoded reply, and the letters aren’t written in Anduin’s handwriting. Something isn’t right.”

For a brief moment, Wrathion closed his eyes. He tried to push back the encroaching feeling of dread, but it was like trying to stop an ocean wave with a sieve. It broke over him, soaking him in its terror.

“What of the other members of the Alliance?” Wrathion heard himself ask, seemingly from a great distance away.

“I haven’t the heart to trouble Velen just yet.” Moira shook her head, glaring out over the hall as she rubbed her chin. “The draenei have just come out of a long period of mourning. I’m not even sure if he’s received word that Anduin was detained.”

Wrathion nodded, staring at the bright blur that the fire had become.

“Perhaps the king wishes to remain in isolation,” he suggested.

Moira’s _humph_ of doubt was both derogatory and a soothing balm.

“I’ve half a mind to hop on the tram and show up there unannounced,” she scoffed, shaking her head. Her cheeks were flushed, a little from the wine but also from anger that she had allowed to show. “If nothing else but to assess what’s going on with my own two eyes.”

When Wrathion was silent, her sharp green gaze turned to him once again.

“You haven’t been in communication with him? Not at all?”

Wrathion shook his head. “I believe it would be best for the king if I did not try.”

Moira had nothing to say to this. Her expression had changed; she now seemed melancholy as she studied the fires, continuing to twirl the golden ring around her finger.

“I wouldn’t be so bold as to presume myself capable of assessing your _unique_ situation,” she said at last. “But, I know what it is like to have a sincere relationship questioned and I hope you may find some kind of solace in this mountain. You and your brother are welcome to spend the night in my guest quarters, Prince Wrathion. I can at least send you on your way after a good rest.”

Wrathion glanced around the hall, searching for his brother and avoiding Moira’s gaze as a dark blush spread across his own face. Ebyssian had wandered off, leaving his place setting empty. He spotted the older dragon arm-wrestling with a formidable looking, well-muscled dwarf. A crowd had gathered around the pair, cheering and sloshing giant mugs of beer.

“Yes,” Wrathion conceded. “That would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.”

Moira raised her glass in a toast, which Wrathion accepted.

* * *

The guest beds, comfortable as they were, did not lead to sleep for Wrathion. The Earth-Warder spent the night staring at the dark shadow on the ceiling and listening to Ebyssian’s soft snores. He fended off the encroaching threat of nightmares and imagined how many layers of stone pressed down upon them from the top of the mountain. Breakfast was a simple affair, which the dragon brothers ate alone in the small parlor attached to their room. They were then escorted to the throne room, where Moira sat, dressed in a formal black robe with white spellthread embroidered in geometric shapes, her hair drawn up in braided laurels beneath her iron crown. A golden wand hung from the belt at her waist, its tip glowing with a white Holy Light. The dragons were the first petitioners to see her early that day.

“Good morning to you both,” Moira said, rapping her fingers across the armrests of the great iron throne. “How did the guest quarters suit you?”

“Quite well, thank you,” Wrathion answered as Ebyssian murmured his thanks and gave a small bow.

“Good,” Moira replied with a nod. “I’ll have an escort come to take you back up through the mountain. They’re packing a few gifts from the Dark Iron clan.”

Wrathion inclined his head in gratitude. “Thank you for your generosity.”

Moira raised her chin a fraction higher. “Before you depart, I have a proposal that I’d like to make: a treaty between the Dark Iron clan and the Black Dragonflight. No one else in Azeroth knows that you’re here, including my father, and I suspect you’d like to keep it that way for as long as possible.”

She paused. It took Wrathion a moment to realize that she was waiting for some kind of confirmation, which he gave with a nod.

“I can offer a promise that my people will not breathe a word of your business to the Alliance,” Moira continued. “And you will have our protection if anyone comes wandering up here with the intent of giving you grief, particularly once the little bairns arrive. If there’s any trade that you require for your work that you cannot obtain because you are barred from the Kingdom of Stormwind, you may seek it through my page and we will take care of it with discretion.”

Wrathion felt a small shock roil through him, but he maintained his composure and bowed. “Your generosity is--”

“In return,” Moira continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. “I ask that the Black Dragonflight form an alliance with the Dark Iron clan and the Dark Iron clan alone. No other dwarven clan may divide the loyalty of your flight. You, Black Prince, will come to our aid if we so require it and all future generations of your flight will honor this bargain.”

Wrathion hesitated. It felt as if a coil had wrapped around his throat and was threatening to squeeze should he misspeak. He took a deep breath to steady his resolve.

“I will agree to such an alliance only under certain conditions,” Wrathion declared. “There will be no Dark Iron dragon riders nor will your people attempt to breed mine like beasts. Not a single egg will be raised by Dark Iron hands in the Blackrock Depths. My flight’s home will remain in the upper part of the mountain, where we will live amongst ourselves as kin.”

The vision almost sounded surreal, to Wrathion, even coming from his own lips. Moira’s expression hardened as she studied him. The dragon returned her gaze, maintaining an equal strength to it as bright red smoke continued to trail from his unblinking eyes.

“Very well,” Moira said, at last. “I accept your conditions. Expect the first draft of the treaty from my servant within a week. You have the Dark Iron clan watching your back, Black Prince.”

The Earth-Warder bowed, one gloved hand laying to rest on his chest over his hearts. “The Black Dragonflight is at your service, Queen Thaurissan.” 

True to Moira’s word, an escort arrived to take Wrathion and Ebyssian up through the mountain, back to the Upper Blackrock Spire. With them were several bundles of dried food, two kegs of beer, fresh parchment and ink, a small stack of books, a large chest of Mithril ore, a small chest of raw, uncut gemstones, and an ornate blacksmith’s hammer.

“I did not have a chance to speak with anyone about our water troubles,” Ebyssian murmured, quietly.

“It’s probably for the best,” Wrathion replied, glancing at the black pack ram that the dwarf escort was guiding up the steps. “No need to reveal any more of our vulnerabilities than we already have, lest they should make their way into this treaty, too.”

* * *

The books from the Dark Iron clan were ancient geology volumes written in draconic, seemingly by a black dragon blacksmith who spent a great deal of time studying the ore in the mountain. Included in the fragile, soft pages were diagrams and instructions for crafting weapons and, curiously enough, armor that used shedded dragon scales. The parchment Wrathion put to use almost immediately. He swept Nefarian’s desk clean, emptying the drawers of their contents. He selected a few items that would be of use to him and put the rest into a pile on the floor for disposal at a later date. The desk became his drafting space, the dust-covered clutter quickly replaced by books and tools that were of more specific use to him than the deceased dragon biologist.

One morning, Ebyssian wandered in, glancing up at the unlit chandeliers, trailing scented smoke from his lit pipe. Wrathion barely murmured a greeting in acknowledgement at the other dragon’s arrival. 

“You’re still in here?” Ebyssian asked, twirling his pipe between his fingers. “Did you get _any_ sleep last night?”

“Mm,” Wrathion muttered around the pencil clamped between his teeth as he thumbed through the pages, bringing another large sheet to the front, sliding a ruler across the surface.

“You didn’t even touch the meat I brought for you,” Ebyssian grunted, glaring at the small table that still held a now gently rotting pile of sliced and charred goat flank that had been sitting there since he’d brought it the previous morning. “The Earth Mother wouldn't approve of her new Warder letting her bounty go to waste like this.”

“Mm.”

Ebyssian exhaled sharply from his nostrils. He made his way across the room, pausing to take puffs from his pipe as he lingered by certain shelves that caught his eye. This particular room had only gotten messier since Wrathion had begun to inhabit it. Stacks of books and parchment littered the floor, creating a kind of knee-high maze that visitors were required to solve to reach certain parts of the room. Enchanted vellums hung from nails on the boards, marking particular sections with organizational notes and symbols that Ebyssian could not discern.

“I’ve made no progress on the water,” the older dragon said. “I thought I would see if I could instead practice on the Steppes. Perhaps I can refill a basin or two, so that we might at least have a closer source of drinking water than the river up north.”

Ebyssian came to rest behind Wrathion, his great antlered head peering over the top of the younger dragon’s shoulder, studying what was written on the parchment. It was some kind of diagram showing leather stretched between a type of frame. There were a series of anchor points attached to something that looked like a saddle or harness.

“What is this?” Ebyssian asked.

“A transport,” Wrathion replied, running a claw across the graphite marks. “Designed to protect a precious and very delicate type of cargo.”

* * *

Highmountain in late summer was crisp and cool, the mountain winds gentle as they filled the canvas canopies of Thunder Totem. The winds grew increasingly bitter the farther one climbed from the great tauren city towards one of the great, perpetually snow-capped peaks. Wrathion felt none of it as he followed in the footsteps of Navarrogg, snow melting beneath the soles of his soft, ornate leather boots. The mountain paths were easy to traverse at this time of year. The primary danger was melting mid-day snow falling off in heaps from the dark green boughs of the pine trees that lined the way. As he walked, Wrathion half-listened to the sound of Ebyssian chatting with the two Highmountain shamans who had joined them to help with the excavation of Neltharion’s Vault. Wrathion did not yet understand Taur-ahe, but was able to pick out a word or two in broken Common here and there. Between them, Ebyssian and one shaman lugged a massive wooden packing crate. The Blacktalon agents who had been assigned to stand guard over Neltharian’s Lair, and before that also Ebyssian, brought up the rear: a pair of sin’dorei twins with dark hair that was almost purple named Solisril and Lunaril.

“Here we are,” Navarrogg’s cheerful voice cut through the biting air from where he stood by a cave entrance, so narrow it might have been missed by a less observant traveler. “Welcome home, Earth-Warder.”

Wrathion’s shoulders loosened at the crooked smile the drogbar threw him, filled with yellow teeth but sincere in its intention. He gave his own light smirk in return and stepped through into the mouth of the cave.

The den was warm, filled with an encompassing heat that only grew stronger the farther down one descended into the cavern. The narrow tunnels of black rock, glittering with micah and traces of leystone ore, gave way to immense caverns around pools of magma. Streams of it flowed from the ceiling, casting a red and orange glow over the paths lined with stone totems wrapped in hemp-strung wards. As the mountain’s oppressive heat grew increasingly intense, spires of shimmering obsidian stone lined the walls like they were passing through the dark ribs of a deceased leviathan.

Deep within the chamber, nestled in a particularly warm stretch of shadow-covered ground that lay before a magma flow, Wrathion found a series of empty copper braziers. Navarrogg stood aside, waiting with his large hands folded behind his back, as he watched the young dragon walk up to each one and light them with a snap of his claw-tipped mortal fingers. Firelight washed up to the ceiling and spilled across the remains of a nest where dozens of spined dragon eggs sat amongst the petrified corpses of their mothers.

For a moment, no one spoke. The only sound was the thud of the packing crate as Ebyssian and his companion let it drop to the ground. Wrathion realized that the assembled gathering was waiting for him to say something.

“We should lay the mothers to rest.”

Wrathion caught Ebyssian’s wary eye and the elder dragon’s great antlers swung forward in a reassuring nod. A series of things began to happen at once. Wrathion instructed his Blacktalon agents to unpack the crate and follow his instructions for the first stage of assembly. Ebyssian and the other Highmountain shamans joined Navarrogg in building a funeral pyre at the center of the nest. The bodies were calcified and stiff, but not impossible to burn. Lunaril wordlessly handed Wrathion an urn that had been packed for the purpose of collecting the ashes, which Wrathion set down on a flat stone before turning his attention to the eggs.

There were forty in total, of colors ranging from deep auburn to an iridescent light grey. Thick black spines protruded from the shells, curving upward in protective arcs like rose brambles. Wrathion knelt beside a cluster of them and laid a hand over the nearest one. Even considering the heat of the cavern air, it felt cold for something earthen-draconic in nature. The rough texture brushed against the soft skin on his mortal palm. The tips of his black claws traced the ridges where a thick black thorn curled inward.

The unmistakable tinge of the old gods slammed upward into his palm. In the back of his mind, he heard something whisper...

“Sir.”

Wrathion’s boots scraped against the nest’s ashen floor as he turned to look over his shoulder at Solisril, who stood peering at him from over the brim of a thin metal rogue’s mask, punctured with circular air holes, that covered the lower half of his square face.

“We’ve completed the first stage of construction.”

“Excellent,” Wrathion said, clearing his throat. “Let us begin loading the cargo.”

One by one, Wrathion and his Blacktalon agents selected eggs from the nest to carry towards the pieces of leather hide. Each hide was each stretched between a simple mithril frame, constructed from the ore Moira had gifted them.

“That’s enough,” Wrathion said, when sixteen eggs had been laid safely in clusters of four at the center of the hides. “This will be the first load.”

He retrieved a piece of canvas from the crate and rolled it out on top of one of the clusters of eggs. One by one, he fastened the canvas to the clasps that kept the leather hide attached to a frame. He reached into a small pouch at his waist and withdrew a thick needle made from dragon bone he had retrieved from Onyxia’s grave in Nefarian’s Lair. Threading a thick bundle of spellthread through the eye, he began to sew the cloth to the leather hide. He repeated the process for the other three cradles.

By the time Wrathion finished, the bodies of the mothers had been broken down and laid out across the funeral pyre. Ebyssian and the shaman concluded the last of the final rites.

“Would you like to say anything, brother?” Ebyssian asked.

Wrathion stared at the calcified segments of limbs and wings, already crumbling into unrecognizable shapes in the red flames. His fingers brushed the dark star ruby hanging below his throat.

“I am sorry for your suffering,” he said. “We will take good care of your children.”

The shaman stayed to watch the fire while Navarogg, Ebyssian, Wrathion, and Solisril each took a corner of one of the four leather cradles. Lunaril scouted ahead of them down the Path of Huln, blunderbuss drawn and ready to frighten away any lizards or bats. Wrathion focused on the purple light emitting from the crystals Navarogg decorated his leather tunic with. Flecks of violet danced across the surface of the canvas, uneven from the forms of the eggs held within.

At last, the fresh, crisp air of Highmountain’s summer sky could be heard and then felt as it whistled down the end of the tunnel. Soon they were standing on the snow-capped Obsidian Overlook.

“Good!” Wrathion called over the noise from the wind, squinting as strands of his hair whipped in front of his face. “Set it down here. We must bring the rest out.”

The remaining cradles and the rest of the materials in the packing crate were carried to the overlook: a series of mithril rods, hooks, and leather straps with buckles. Wrathion shifted into his true form and aligned his flank with one end of a leather hide cradle. Ebyssian took a small bottle from a pouch hanging from his belt, uncorked it, and drank the contents in a few swift gulps before he followed suit, aligning his larger form with another. The two dragons waited patiently while the two Blacktalon agents attached the saddles and the cradles to them, securing the straps and the buckles, while Navarogg watched with curiosity. Each dragon bore two cradles, one hanging off the side.

“ **Are you ready?** ” Wrathion asked.

Ebyssian let out a hefty grunt and dipped his great horned head, but said nothing coherent. The resistance potion seemed to be working, not a single dark tendril from the corrupted eggs reached for the elder dragon’s weak, untrained mind.

“Have a safe flight, Earth-Warder, Ebonhorn,” Navarogg said, raising a giant hand in farewell. “We’ll be waiting for you when you return for the next batch. May the Earth Mother bring a forgiving wind to your wings.”

Wrathion turned his gaze towards the sky. The weight of the harness pressed into his shoulders and sides, the feeling of it unfamiliar though not uncomfortable. He had spent many hours perfecting the balance of the prototypes and guessing the weight distribution on both of their bodies, using chunks of rock in place of dragon eggs. Though they had practiced flying in tandem back and forth across the Burning Steppes and then over parts of the ocean, none of it would quite compare to the stress of the real thing. 

It would have to be enough.

With a great flapping of their wings and unsteady, looping run, Wrathion launched himself from the edge of the mountain, Ebyssian close behind. The snow-capped peaks of the Overlook quickly faded into the distance behind them as they began the long flight towards the Eastern Kingdoms.

* * *

On the floor of the Rookery, Ebyssian sank to his haunches, then lowered his belly to the floor, letting out a long, deep groan as he stretched, his tail narrowly missing knocking Wrathion’s ankles. His great wings unfurled, stretching towards the chamber’s low ceiling, pushing air through the room as he slowly lowered them to the ground The Earth-Warder stood with his mortal hands planted on his hips. Every muscle in his back, from his shoulders down to his thighs, ached with a dull, persistent fire. He could still feel the ghost of the leather straps digging into his sore body. Through the pain and exhaustion fogging his mind, Wrathion could only stand and stare with a small amount of triumph at the sight of forty black dragon eggs, laid out on the stone floor before them in front of the roaring heaters.

In the corner of Wrathion’s vision, the shadows in the room roiled.

“Do you hear the whispers?” Wrathion asked.

Ebyssian turned his head. One large, brown eye rolled towards the younger dragon. “ **...no. No, I do not think so.** ”

Wrathion nodded, running a hand across his beard. “Just to be safe, for the first night, would you take another potion before you sleep? And be sure to wake me if you hear even the slightest murmur.”

A deep chuckle reverberated in the elder dragon’s breast. “ **Does this mean that you’re finally going to get some sleep tonight, brother?** ”

“I don’t believe my body will give me a choice in the matter,” Wrathion sighed, running a hand over the back of one shoulder to massage the muscle as he tilted his head to the side, stretching out his long neck.

With a wince, Wrathion let his legs fold beneath him, and he shifted into his own draconic form, turning so that his red, smoking eyes had a good view of every egg. Ebyssian folded his wings to accommodate him.

“ **How do you suppose the mothers kept the nests warm?” Wrathion asked. “ **With spines like that?** ”**

****

****

“ **I do not know,** ” Ebyssian admitted. “ **It’s been almost ten thousand years since I was in an egg. Perhaps they did not lie in their nests the way that other flights did.** ”

Wrathion frowned. A memory stirred at the back of his mind of shifting within amniotic fluid, turning to bring his small body closer to a comforting weight and warmth that he could feel pressing against the shell. The familiar sound of two powerful hearts rapidly beating in fright reverberated through not only his structure but the ones that surrounded him.

“ **I believe that they did,** ” Wrathion said.

Ebyssian turned to look at him skeptically.

“ **I suppose we will cross that bridge when we come to it,** ” the elder dragon said, shifting onto his haunches. His great jaw cracked as it opened into a wide, tongue-curling yawn. “ **We can make due with fire and these furnaces.** ”

“ **Perhaps we could use the magma flows in the mountain,** ” Wrathion agreed. “ **I’ve been thinking of directing them towards a kind of incubator. I suspect that, historically, it may have been our flight’s primary method for keeping their young warm.** ”

With a groan, Ebyssian rose to his feet, shaking his body out as if he were trying to expel the memory of the harness. “ **Lay your busy mind to rest, Wrathion. We have nothing if not time. These eggs have lain dormant for centuries, one more night or two will hardly make a difference. I intended to take another one of your potions and sleep for at least an entire day.** ”

Wrathion lifted his head to briefly meet his brother’s. “ **Goodnight, Ebyssian.** ”

When Ebyssian’s footsteps faded, Wrathion settled back on his stomach, allowing his entire weight to sink completely into the warm stone. The tip of his tail scuttled across the tiles as it slowly swished back and forth on the floor behind him. He let his chin rest so that his snout was almost pressed against the closest egg, the color of Stormwind’s trees in autumn, its bone-yellow spines like branches. The sour scent of corruption clung to both the shell and the dormant cells that lay within, making his nostrils flare. His tired mind ruffled through the various half-formed plans of how to cleans it.

Wrathion let go of consciousness and sank into the waiting embrace of the nightmares.

* * *

The ruins of the Tomb of Sargeras still fizzled with the remnants of the fel energy that used to surge from the former temple like a perpetually gushing wound. The acid green sparking in the air and seeping from the fissures in the ground were difficult for the mortal eye to detect in the daylight, but Wrathion could both see and feel it, strongly, even from where he sat at a distance, perched atop a dark ledge, contemplating the structure. The sun shone bright in the clear blue sky, framed by white clouds drifting across the calming rumble of the ocean. With the sharp smell of salt masking the traces of sulfur in the air, it was almost easy to forget what lay dormant within the crumbling, beautiful quel'dorei constructed walls.

A frown tugged at the corners of the Earth-Warder’s mouth. He turned his head towards the arcane disturbance that prickled at the back of his mind and just managed to catch the violet flash of a mage’s portal before it folded. A gray-haired man limped across the rocky charcoal plain with surprising speed, supporting himself with a great wooden staff carved in the shape of a raven. Wrathion turned his head back towards the Tomb, pulling his ankle close and tapping his claws together from where they dangled across his knee.

“Archmage,” Wrathion said in greeting, when Khadgar was within hearing range. “It’s curious that we should both happen to encounter one another taking a stroll by the former Temple of Elune at the same time of day.”

“Oh, not so curious,” Khadgar sighed as he came to rest just outside of the dragon’s field of vision, leaning on his staff. His breath was only slightly strained. When he spoke, he sounded tired. “Since the incident with the Tidestone, I erected wards to warn me if anyone or anything radiating a not-insignificant amount of power approached the Tomb.”

After a long silence broken only by the cries of seagulls flying overhead, Khadgar took a step forward and with a groan, sank down about a foot away from the dragon, letting his legs and the hem of his robe dangle over the ledge. The mage set Atiesh drifting in the air before them, spinning it slowly like a strange top.

“I am sorry for my part in what happened,” Khadgar said, finally, twitching his fingers to give the staff more momentum. “Given all my years, I did not think that I had so much naivety left in me. I gave you bad council and I allowed myself to serve as a honey-tongued messenger for others' malice and deceit.”

Wrathion broke his gaze away from the Tomb’s tallest tower, staring down at his claws tracing an embroidered leaf on his thigh. “There is nothing to apologize for. You were no more a greater fool than I.”

“Still I--”

“Please,” Wrathion interrupted. “I would rather not speak of it.”

The dragon picked up a loose stone from the ledge and began to turn it between his fingers. The rock glittered under the bright sun, revealing minerals that would not have been seen on an overcast day.

“Where is your...familiar?” Wrathion asked.

Khadgar’s cheeks flushed, the wind whipping strands of gray hair across his furrowed brow. “Preparing to depart. He has work that is of interest to him elsewhere and will not remain on this plane of existence much longer. He is trying to convince me to go with him...and I am trying to convince him to stay. This Titan is still in need of a Guardian or two to protect both Her and Her children, though with each passing year, it seems less worth the effort.”

Wrathion threw the stone. It skittered and bounced across the boulder-lined path bellow, swallowed in the colors and shapes of the gravel.

“At least the seal seems to still be holding,” Wrathion remarked.

“It is,” Khadgar conceded. “All the same, I would rather if you did not weaken it further.”

Wrathion sighed, turning his head. “I somewhat doubt that any one of the remaining artifacts would actually give me what I seek.”

“This has something to do with your brother?”

The Earth-Warder rolled the possible responses over in his head. 

“Not quite,” Wrathion chose to say.

Khadgar sighed. “If the Earth-Warder of Azeroth is contemplating the use of the Pillars of Creation for his work, I would be hard pressed to question his need. If there is any other way that the Kirin Tor may be of use to you, you have only to ask.”

Wrathion considered, kicking his boot back to scrape at the ledge with his toe.

“I don’t suppose the Kirin Tor happen to have any spare Titan orbs lying about?”

Khadgar turned in surprise, then his face softened to almost a smirk. “No. I am afraid not.”

Wrathion rose to his feet, looking down to meet the Archmage’s cool gaze with his own fiery-red eyes. “Please let me know if you should come across one.”

“Erm, of course, but where--”

With a strong gust of wind, Khadgar leaned forward, bracing his hands against the ledge as Wrathion shifted into his true form and beat his wings as he ran towards the cliff-face. It wasn’t long before the dragon was airborne and the Broken Isles were a rapidly receding spot on the ocean beneath him and the great Archmage of the Kirin Tor an indistinguishable speck.

* * *

“Wrathion.”

With a truncated cry, the Earth-Warder jerked upward from where he had fallen asleep, hunched over a stack of old maps and an open book on his desk. Ebyssian’s tauren-shaped hand retreated from its firm grip shaking his shoulder.

“Did you work late again?”

Wrathion combed his fingers through his thick, dark hair, shoving it back more or less in place over his shoulders. He ran the tip of his claw over the dark bags beneath his eyes. “I suppose I did. What time is it?”

“Almost midday,” Ebyssian said. “The weather is beautiful. I wanted to invite you to come outside with me for a flight. We should enjoy it while we can, before the weather turns. And I have something that I’d like to do with you, if you have the strength for it.”

Wrathion slumped back into the ornate wooden chair, letting his wrists perch over the armrests. He tried to focus on the hastily written notes inscribed on the maps, the script broken by the seams where the parchment had been folded and unfolded countless times by the dwarven explorer who charted it through the evergreen forests across Northrend. The ink and the sketches blurred under a throbbing that began to pierce the upper part of his skull, threatening to encompass his entire head with its thick, painful waves.

Two claws pinched the skin at the bridge of his nose and the Earth-Warder took a long, deep breath, pushing back against the feeling.

“Yes. That sounds like an excellent idea.”

True to Ebyssian’s word, it was, in fact, a beautiful day on the Burning Steppes. The summer sky was a dazzling robin’s egg blue. What few clouds there were glistened white and wispy in the atmosphere. Wrathion felt the headache melt from his skull beneath the delicious heat of the midday sun and the fresh breeze blasting his face as he accelerated to full velocity. The golden rays soaked into his ebony scales and warmed the skin stretched across his wings. He circled loops around Ebyssian, whose lumbering form glided along the strongest drafts at a leisurely pace. The elder dragon’s brown eyes were half-closed as he lifted his chin into the wind, rustling his long beard.

“ **Brother, where are we going?** ” Wrathion asked, after his twelfth loop or so.

“ **Just to a spot near the Thaurissan Ruins,** ” Ebyssian replied. “ **I am hungry. I thought we should fetch some food first.** ”

Wrathion opened his jaw to protest, but a rumble in his stomach interrupted his admittedly scattered thoughts. He let out a long sigh that was quickly taken by the wind. “ **Of course.** ”

The first two mountain goats Ebyssian spotted on Flame Crest ridge succumbed to the dragon’s massive teeth. Wrathion sat on his haunches and waited for the elder dragon to say a prayer of thanks to the Earth Mother before lightly roasting both animals until the fur was charred and the meat dripping with juices. They tucked into the small bounty, stripping the bones

“ **The Highmountain prefer not to waste a single part of the animal,** ” Ebyssian murmured as he built a small pyre to burn the remains.

“ **What use have you and I for fur, horn, or bone?** ” Wrathion scoffed.

Ebyssian hummed in contemplation. “ **Do you not still enjoy the softness of a well tanned hide on your mortal skin? Or the warmth of a fur cloak about your shoulders?** ”

Wrathion exhaled, thick black smoke pouring from his nostrils. “ **I think it best for the survival of our flight if we wean ourselves off of these things. We are dragons, not mortals, and we ought to not loose ourselves in their pleasures.** ”

Ebyssian tilted his head thoughtfully as he stared off towards the distant mountains. “ **Ah, yes, but I do not know if I could so easily raise children if I knew they would forever be denied such mortal delights as the season’s first snow crunching beneath their bare mortal hooves or the first taste of rich, toasted Highmountain bread between their fangs.** ”

Wrathion said nothing, but narrowed his smoking red eyes as he turned away.

The spot Ebyssian had scouted for their final destination was a small stretch of dry land in a basin to the south of the Ruins of Thaurissan. As soon as Ebyssian’s claws touched the cracked clay ground they turned into a pair of sturdy hooves, scales giving way to fur and his crest of horns melting into a rack of vicious antlers. The bones on his headdress rattled as he walked along a meandering path, humming to himself as he nudged the clay here and there. Wrathion, after a long moment, followed his lead and was soon taking delicate steps across the earth.

“What are you doing?” Wrathion asked after several moments of watching the dance.

“Finding a good spot,” Ebyssian replied, unhelpfully.

Wrathion folded his arms across his chest. The red star ruby glistened on its delicate golden chain in the sun where it nestled in the open v-neck of his crisp black tunic.

“Ah,” Ebyssian said at last, tapping his hooves to pack the clay beneath him. “Yes. Here. I believe this will do.”

The elder dragon began to sing in a low, crooning tone, Highmountain words that meant nothing to Wrathion’s untrained ears. From a pouch at his waist, the dragon began to sprinkle a mixture of herbs and salt from his tauren hands, moving in more or less a circle. He dropped a hand-carved wooden totem in the center. Wrathion squinted. It appeared to be more or less in the shape of a whale.

“Come, brother.” Ebyssian’s singing came to an abrupt halt. Wrathion looked up to find the other dragon facing him, holding out his hands, still stuck with pieces of dried green thyme.

Wrathion opened his mouth to speak, but he could no longer ignore the heightened sense of pulsating earth magic Ebyssian had summoned into the air. It was considerably stronger in the basin than it had ever been in Silithus. The very groundearth was resonating with Ebyssian’s magic. He had called to the earth, with his chants and his hooves, and the Burning Steppes had listened.

The younger dragon walked closer until he was standing an arm’s length apart from his brother. He held out his hands and slipped them into the dragon’s large, tauren-shaped hands. They clasped their fingers until their palms were pressed together. Wrathion stifled a gasp as he felt the energy Ebyssian had corralled surge through him. Through his body, it only amplified. Azeroth reached out to him in a small but significant tendril, asking a single question. In an instant, he understood what the other dragon was doing, and when he raised his chin, smoking red eyes met deep dark brown. Wrathion dipped his bearded chin, golden hoop earrings brushing against his jaw, and secured his grip on Ebyssian’s hands. The Taur-ahe prayers from his brother’s throat melded into the beating of the earth. Ebyssian guided him as he reached down below the surface, through layers of dry, packed dirt and rock, until he hit a pocket and…

Water gushed through the hole between them, bursting up in a great geyser as the pressure vented, tearing their hands apart and sending them both stumbling backwards. It filled Wrathion’s boots as it pooled around them, soaking the fine silk of his billowing pants, creeping up the finely embroidered ends of his sash. Droplets rained down around them, filtering the sunlight in an iridescent rainbow that arced above and below them in a perfect circle of color. Ebyssian let loose a booming shout of triumph as Wrathion pursed his lips together before letting his tongue slip out, tilting his face up to catch the cool, refreshing drops.

“This will be far easier than making the flight north to the Searing Gorge for water!” Ebyssian shouted.

It was late in the evening by the time that they returned to Blackrock Mountain. The basin was full of freshwater and Wrathion had ensured that the hole was sealed. The sun had dipped below the horizon, the dark night illuminated by the gentle glow of the lava lakes surrounding the cragigy base. Wrathion’s brows knotted at the sight of a strange, violet-blue light on the edge of the ledge of Nefarian’s throne. He readied a hot stream of fire in his breast, which extinguished in a sharp cloud of thick black smoke that streamed up his long throat and between his yellow teeth as he spotted a familiar head of dark blue hair, tied back into a messy bun, wisps of it framing a pale elven face.

Kalecgos rose from his seat upon a fallen pillar, extinguishing the small arcane fire he had lit upon a small stack of debris at his feet to save himself from sitting in the dark shadow of the mountain. He wore a fine white cloak embroidered with constellations of silver stars over his shoulders, on top of a simple white tunic tucked into fine brown breeches and tall oak-brown boots. Wrathion shifted into his own mortal form, his red eyes casting light across the broken marble tiles at their feet as he crossed the distance between them.

“Greetings, Wrathion.,” Kalecgos’ smile faltered as the black dragon came to an abrupt stop a foot away. “It’s so good to see you in good health.”

Wrathion ignored the blue dragon’s outstretched hand. “How did you discover our location?”

Kalecgos’ smile settled into a sheepish smirk as he picked up a leather satchel from the ground and slung the strap over his shoulder. “It wasn’t too difficult to figure out--”

Under Wrathion’s stony expression, the blue dragon faltered.

“Jaina,” Kalecgos admitted. “She asked if I would check in on you, as a personal favor.”

Wrathion pressed his claws into the bridge of his nose. Behind him, Ebyssian landed with a loud _thud_ that sent a tremor through the floor beneath their boots.

“Would you like to come in, Spell-Weaver?” the elder dragon asked. “You’d have the honor of being the first dragon to have a tour of the Black Dragonflight’s new den.”

“How marvelous,” Kalecgos replied, rolling his shoulder as he cast a brief, concerned glance in Wrathion’s direction before the younger dragon strode towards the broken entrance. “I would enjoy that immensely. Thank you.”

In the Rookery, Kalecgos unloaded the contents of his seemingly bottomless enchanted leather satchel. Ten bottles of arcane-infused Dalaran Red were lined up in a neat pyramid on the stones, their dark magenta glass catching the light from the furnaces that lined the walls. With a wave of his hands and a pinch of crystalline dust from a small leather pouch at his waist, the spell-weaver summoned three enchanted glasses from thin air. After a moment’s hesitation, he enlarged one to better fit Ebyssian’s large paws. Two boxes of pastries soon followed. Wrathion begrudgingly cradled his wine glass as he perched atop a low stone ledge, eyes sharp on Kalecgos as the blue dragon examined the spined, dormant eggs while nibbling on a jam and custard filled powdered donut.

“Incredible,” the spell-weaver said after a while, his voice quiet with genuine awe. “You were right to bring these under your protection. All of the other flights are doing the same to protect what eggs were laid before the Hour of Twilight, and there were so few blues to begin with...”

Kalecgos flinched. Wrathion’s shoulders tensed at the surge of void energy that rippled from an egg, like a pot overflowing. It was quickly absorbed by four of the surrounding eggs that then began to whisper. Ebyssian shifted restlessly, then reached for a pouch at his waist. He took one of Wrathion’s potions, an oily dark-green mixture, and downed the entire bottle. He shuddered, but, after a moment, his expression relaxed.

“Interesting,” Kalecgos mused, licking powdered sugar from his fingers.

He returned to his leather satchel, still waiting on the floor next to his wine glass, and squatted beside it. With both hands, he reached inside to take hold of something that seemed to be quite large and heavy. The illusion made Wrathion’s eyes cross as the spell-weaver, with a grunt, pulled it out and set it to rest an inch or so above the floor. The whispers from the eggs were drowned out byfrom a melodic humming that filled the room.

The device was a strange, shimmering stone orb that danced within a strange constellation of white lights. The stone had carvings of leaves and vines curling around holes that were large enough to stick an unclosed hand through. From the hollow center, a warm, radiant light poured out, spilling across the floor and the closest objects. It rotated gently in place as it hovered in the air, suspended by some unknown force.

Wrathion rose to his feet, staring at the mechanism as it began to orbit the floor in curious circles. He left his wine glass on the ledge as both of his hands flew to his sides, where he felt twin phantom twinges streak up the seam-like scars. “Kalecgos...where…?”

“Recovered from a recent expedition to Ulduar,” Kalecgos replied, shifting back onto his heels as he twisted to watch the device. “There were three that we found still working in a temple. Two are in Dalaran for further study, but your work in Titan research is unparalleled. It didn’t seem right to forgo asking if you would also be interested in keeping one for study...”

“Did Khadgar tell you of my request?” Wrathion interrupted, raising a hand.

Kalecgos’ face flushed from his cheeks to the tips of his slightly pointed milk-white ears. “...well...”

“It already seems to be having an effect.” Ebyssian’s low, rumbling voice cut in.

Wrathion took slow, soundless steps in the Titan orb’s wake, anxiety gnawing at his stomach. The corrupted black dragon eggs were of clear interest to it as it made slow but sure progress towards them in its meandering path through the room. The whispers had quieted and the cloud of void energy was compacting, tightening into dense spheres at the center of the eggs.

“Thank you, Kalecgos,” Ebyssian continued, as Wrathion stood and watched the orb. “It is a generous gift from the Kirin Tor and the Blue Dragonflight.”

“You are most welcome. I hope that it will be of use,” Kalecgos rose to refill the older dragon’s glass. “And how are the two of you doing? I’m surprised that you actually did decide to settle this close to the Kingdom of Stormwind.”

Wrathion’s shoulders raised a fraction as he brought his hands to rest on his hips. His cheeks burned beneath the faint traces of scales.

“Oh, yes, we’ll be keeping them on their toes,” Ebyssian said with a low chuckle, so deep and loud that it seemed to make the air around him vibrate. “I’m certain once they realize that we’re here, another spear launcher or twenty will be constructed on their side of the mountains.”

“The past few decades have been rather tumultuous for the humans of Azeroth, dealings with dragons in particular,” Kalecgos admitted. “Perhaps given time, and decades of living in peace side-by-side with the Black Dragonflight at the Stormwind border, tensions will soften.”

Wrathion stopped himself from flinching as he realized that the spell-weaver was now standing at his elbow, the black dragon’s abandoned wine glass in hand.

“But how are _you_ doing, Wrathion?” Kalecgos asked, his voice quiet with concern. “Personally, I mean, if I may be so bold?”

Wrathion forced his best mortal smile as he accepted the glass from Kalecgos’ hand, his voice cool and silky even as the faintest wisps of hot smoke curled from his tongue. “Rest assured, my dear Kalecgos, I am perfectly fine.”

* * *

Though no sunlight ever reached the streets of the Blackrock Depths and the members of the Dark Iron clan for the most part had a stronger dark vision than most other clans, they nonetheless put effort towards maintaining some kind of light cycle for the sake of their people’s circadian rhythm and the people who lived amongst them who could not see as well in the shadows of a cave as they could in the sun. At night, the most light came from the lava flows and forges and the eyes and hair of the Dark Irons themselves. During the day, the streets were lit with oil lamps, braziers, and additional lighting mechanisms that had a unique engineering style. Most of the artificial bulbs were capable of providing the right kind of light for hardy ferns and mushrooms to grow in the moist cracks of the stones. Wrathion found himself drawn to them, craning his neck to peer curiously at the bits of wire and other silicone electronics components that happened to catch his eye.

“Earth-Warder?”

Wrathion tore his eyes away from one such construct and realized he had fallen a few paces behind his escort. The Queen-Regent stood facing him, her hands holding up her skirts to keep them clean of the soot and ash that was more frequent in the lower depths.

“Forgive me, Your Majesty,” Wrathion said with a small, apologetic smile. “The ingenuity in your city is unparalleled.”

“Oh, I’m certain Prince Erazmin’s people would give us a run for our money,” Moira replied, lightly. as Wrathion took a series of quick steps. “Now, what’s this business, then, about some special materials you’ll be needing?”

“Not so special,” Wrathion said as he and Moira resumed their leisurely pace. “Most of them are quite common alchemy reagents that became scarce due to their increased use during the Fourth War. They are things I used frequently for my work brewing corruption resistance potions in Silithus, but I no longer have the...connections to obtain them in bulk.”

“Ah,” Moira nodded. “I’ll introduce you to our court supplier. She can get orders to you under our name.”

“Thank you, I’d be most grateful.”

Moira’s expression shifted, tension drawing her brows together. When she spoke again, her voice was a hair lighter. “I was wondering, will you or your brother be in the mountain any time next week, by any chance?”

“I believe so,” Wrathion replied, folding his hands behind his back. “Why do you ask?”

Moira rubbed her chin, green eyes drifting as her pace slowed. “I might be having an important visitor that I’d like to introduce to an emissary from the Black Dragonflight. I’m not sure if I can manage to arrange it, though.”

“Well, both my brother and I will be quite at our liesu--”

Wrathion’s voice trailed off as he came to an abrupt stop. His hearts began to pound and his muscles seized, his temperature chilling as panic took hold for one terrifying moment. Then, he remembered to breathe and struggled to calm himself with deep, even breaths.

“...ince Wrathion?”

Moira’s hand was raised cautiously, the Light ready and glowing at her fingertips, concern knitted across her shadowed face. “Are you well, Your Highness? Do you need to sit down?”

“No, thank you, Your Majesty.” 

Wrathion surprised himself by how calm and steady his voice was. He kept his hands busy by straightening his light summer coat and adjusting the knot of the sash at his waist. Casually, he lifted his bearded chin in the direction of the building that had taken his attention, an ornate structure carved directly into the wall of the mountain.

“Forgive me,” he said with a charming smile that did not reach his eyes. “I was merely overcome by the beauty of this monument. What do you call this place?”

If Moira suspected something was wrong, she did not show it. A fond smile flickered across her face as she lowered her hand and turned towards the entrance, where thirteen stone dwarves peered back at them from where they stood above pillars.

“This is our most sacred temple,” she explained, gesturing with pride towards where a cluster of Dark Iron priests congregated on the steps. “The Temple of the Thirteen Winds. Would you like to see the inside?”

Wrathion hesitated, but when he realized that Moira was asking him the question in earnest, he nodded. “Yes. I would.”

“Excellent,” Moira hitched up her skirts and led the way to the approach, where there was a tall flight of stone steps that surrounded the temple. Wrathion tilted his head upwards to stare at the thirteen stone faces that looked back down upon him with benign indifference. Unlike in his dream, the vision of Deathwing holding the universe beneath his wings did not loom overhead, simply the plain black shadow of the cavern ceiling.

Instead of a solid wall or a tomb, the temple opened into a wide cavern with a high ceiling supported by pillars. Murals of the sky were painted above with strange creatures that had many eyes and wings. Candles and carefully placed electric lights kept them visible in the dim lighting. Wrathion imitated Moira’s lead. He removed his boots and left them in a small nook by the entrance before joining her at the side of a wide in-ground pool. He knelt with her next to where two other dwarves appeared to be meditating and dipped his claws into the water and touched his forehead, then his lips, before rising again and following her deeper into the chamber.

“This is a holy site,” Moira explained in a low whisper as she led him around the edge of the chamber. There were straw mats, woven rugs, and pillows laid across the floor where visitors were sitting in meditation or prayer. Along the walls were mosaics that depicted illustrations of dwarves entering the underground, mining, and performing shaman rituals with water and lava. “Many centuries ago, when these caverns were first dug out by my people’s ancestors, there was a terrible cave-in that wiped out the first version of the Blackrock Depths. Thirteen priests called upon the Light to create a shield dome that kept the rubble at bay, giving enough time for most of the citizens to evacuate. Records say that the Light sent the wind itself from the surface to fill the cavern and give them enough air with which to say their prayers. They held the shield until their last breaths and were buried beneath the collapse. Their remains were found when the city was re-dug, the Dark Irons learning from their previous mistakes, and their fossilized bones were infused with the Light.”

Wrathion followed Moira’s finger to where some kind of shrine or altar of white marble stood amongst rippling, thin waterfall fountains in the stones at the center of the temple. For a while, he did not move. Moira said nothing and stood quietly by his side.

“I think I would like to pray,” he said, finally.

Moira led him to a quiet spot near the rear of the chamber where he knelt down on one of the prayer rugs. Again, he watched Moira out of the corner of his eye and mimicked her movements, leaning down so that his forehead briefly touched the floor before rising again and settling on his feet. He felt uncomfortable, realizing almost at once that he did not know what to do, but something about the quiet murmurs of the dwarven voices and the rippling sound of water over stone was nonetheless comforting. 

Wrathion’s red eyes wandered across the front of the chamber, drawn to the interesting gilded edges of the mosaics, trying to pick out the kinds of stones and gems that went into the pieces. Every cough, every shifting movement, every tear caught his attention. Glancing to the side, he saw that Moira had settled into a deep meditative trance. Faint traces of the Light that he had seen so often reflected in Anduin’s profile and eyes clung to her own silhouette.

The dragon squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to concentrate. He tried to settle his itching mortal body, to take deep, calming breaths and dissuade his quickening pulse. Wrathion tried to recall any of the words he remembered Anduin saying on countless occasions, when he had used the Light to sooth the dragon’s aches from travel on the road or panicked tremors after a tumultuous nightmare. To his frustration, Wrathion realized he could only recall times when the king had read out loud to him from the dragon's own books on some kind of science or Titan mythology, his soothing, sometimes mocking voice stumbling over difficult terminology while laughing at his own inability to understand the texts. But it did not matter, Wrathion enjoyed hearing the king speak. It was so much easier to fall asleep while listening to the sound of Anduin’s gentle...

Wrathion shook his head to try and banish the distracting memory, earrings tangled in his hair. Was _this_ what Anduin Wrynn did, more or less every day, the dragon wondered as resentment began to creep in. Let his disciplined mind recite incantations of questionable meaning while he sat in a room declared holy by some priest or another? What made these particular stone walls, in all of Blackrock Mountain, unique? Azeroth was littered with the blood and bones of millions that had died in many locations on Her surface. Would Nefarian’s Crimson Laboratories now become a sort of temple, if the Earth-Warder claimed it was so? A hot flush rose to Wrathion’s cheeks as his teeth clenched and he dug his claws into his thighs.

_Ridiculous._

Wrathion rose to his feet and quietly made his way to the front of the chamber, where he retrieved his boots and waited on the steps for the Queen-Regent to rejoin him. Disappointment curdled, dark and venomous, in his chest.

* * *

A low-pitched, melodic vibration resonated throughout Nefarian’s library as the Titan orb continued its fiftieth tour of the library’s perimeter that day, searching for an exit that did not exist with the doors shut. Wrathion did not trust it near the corrupted nest, so he kept it contained within the library and the library doors locked at night. He frankly did not trust it around Ebyssian nor in the mountain at all. What had seemed like a gift had quickly become another source of stress, some other unknown variable that Wrathion was forced to accommodate in his knotted string of plans. When the young dragon lay in his growing nest of moss and stone at night, he swore he could hear it, floors away, singing to itself as it orbited in a slow, chaotic circuit amongst the shelves of draconic books. 

The Earth-Warder had abandoned all pretense of getting work done for the rest of the day. He leaned into the high-backed chair at his desk, curl-toed boots crossed at the ankles on top of the desk next to the newest stack of books he was perusing. The gnawed end of a disintegrating pencil was clamped between his fangs as he watched the orb, his mind buzzing. His red gaze remained trained on the glitter and shine of the white undying lights drifting across the walls and the carpet, even as the sound of the double doors to the library thumping open drew his attention.

“ _Wrathion._ ”

Ebyssian’s voice betrayed an uncharacteristic urgency. The Earth-Warder’s heels slid off the edge of the desk and hit the ground with a soft thud. The sight of his brother’s face, stricken with fear, drove him to stand.

“Ebyssian,” Wrathion said at once. “Are you injured?”

“I need your assistance,” Ebyssian begged. “You must fly with me to the Blackrock Gates, at once.”

A million possibilities flashed through Wrathion’s mind, but he silenced the worst of them and managed to dip his bearded chin, swiftly following his brother through the broken halls to the entrance to Nefarian’s Lair. 

“Are we under attack?” Wrathion asked as they emerged into the darkening afternoon sun. “Is it Greymane, someone from Stormwind?”

“ **No,** ” Ebyssian rumbled as he shifted. “ **Two of your agents. At least one seems to be quite injured.** ”

Wrathion swallowed the panic bubbling up from his stomach as his own body shed its mortal guise and fell back into its natural form. The air rippled from both the heat and the sudden wind as they took flight. Wrathion could not bring himself to overtake his brother, he simply followed, like a tether to a kite string, as the elder dragon swooped down to the long, wavering road that led up to the mountain’s entrance.

Wrathion spotted them long before his claws touched the earth. A pair of travelers were in the dirt beside a wary-looking gryphon. The gryphon bore the blue and gold harness of a beast from Stormwind City or Elwynn, her white and brown feathers ruffled. The reins dragged loose in the dirt, flank heaving as she took labored breaths and shuffled about on her scaled claws. 

Wrathion drew his wings inward and dropped the last few feet from the air like a stone, his red eyes wide with his panic. He skidded as he ran, scales and horns giving way to skin and hair. Wrathion fell to his knees as the last of the scales receded from his face and arms, dust and ash rising in clouds around him. He reached with shaking claws to grasp Right’s bloody face, looking up with unfocused eyes from where she lay in Left’s lap.

“Wh-what…?” Wrathion found he could exert utterly no control over his voice, shaking like a child’s. “...what happened?”

“We’ve just come from the Kingdom of Stormwind,” Left interrupted. Wrathion could barely bring her dirt-stained, tear streaked face into focus. Her waist-length ponytail fell over her shoulder, the end matted with her partner’s dried blood. “The monarchy and the House of Nobles are under assault by the Defias Brotherhood. Right was in the city when it began. I rescued her somewhere near Goldshire.”

Wrathion’s face dropped into an unfiltered expression of pure shock as his eyes widened. The earth seemed to fall away beneath him and his grip on Right’s head was the only thing keeping him tethered. He stared into Left’s face as if there would be some clue hidden, perhaps in the weary bags beneath her eyes or the lines in her face, that she had misspoken.

Right gave a violent cough. She hacked up more dark-red bile, dribbling down her chin and the front of her simple peasant’s tunic, her chest taking shuddered, heaving movements. Her light brown cloak spilled about her like tattered wings, the silver mask that she normally wore over the lower half of her face dangled from her neck.

“...’m...sorry…” she slurred. “My...prince...I couldn’t reach him...I...failed you…”

Wrathion felt as if he were watching the scene from somewhere high above the afternoon clouds. He watched himself reach out and shift Right’s body from Left’s lap into his own, rocking back and forth on his knees. He cradled her as her blood and spit stained the front of his own fine white embroidered tunic. Hot, smoking tears were spilling down his face, stricken with terror.

“No,” the dragon murmured, doing his best to stroke Right’s dark, auburn hair back from her bloodied face as his fingers trembled uncontrollably. “ _Never_ , you _never_ fail me, Right...”

“Wrathion,” Left’s voice trembled in a way he had never heard before. It frightened him. “We must get her to a healer.”

Wrathion’s hand flew to his belt, grasping for some kind of potion that was not there. He turned and looked up at his brother, who stood watching from a foot or so away, brows knitted.

“Ebyssian,” he said. “Take Left. I will carry Right to the Blackrock Depths.”

Ebyssian flexed his fingers, shaking his head. “It will be quicker if you fly there alone. I believe I can keep her stable until you return.”

Wrathion exchanged glances with Left, who nodded, furrowing her brows at Ebyssian as they shifted to accommodate the shaman as he knelt down. Right’s eyes bulged and she groaned in pain as Wrathion lay her across the ground, Left tucking the folds of her cloak to pillow the back of her head against the hard rocky ground. Ebyssian began to hum, then the murmurs of a Highmountain prayer began to leave his teeth. The faintest ripple snaked from a totem in his hand, up his arm to his shoulder, across his chest, and down the other arm where it left his fingers and entered Right’s body. Her limbs trembled as she shuddered, but a small gasp of relief left her open lips. Ebyssian caught Wrathion’s eye and he nodded.

The Earth-Warder rose to his feet and ran, leaping into the air with a rustle of wings and scales. He forced himself to look at the looming peak of Blackrock Mountain, resisting the temptation to look over his shoulder towards the southern mountain range of the Burning Steppes to try to see the distant white gleam of Stormwind City.

* * *

The Blackrock Depths had several enclaves where healers tended to the wounded and Right was now in one of them, her body stretched across a narrow woven mat on the floor of a small room as a priest made his initial assessment. Wrathion stood off to the side, arms hanging uselessly, with Left beside him. The orc’s wiry green arms were folded tightly across her chest as she stared at Right with a clenched jaw.

Some small commotion towards the door drew Wrathion’s attention. Moira was fighting her way past the crowd of aides double-checking the supplies in the room.

“I came as soon as I heard,” Moira said, kneeling down beside Right’s body on the mat. “Is she one of yours?”

Wrathion nodded. “Yes.”

Moira smoothed her hand over Right’s forehead, murmuring a quiet prayer. The Light glowed beneath her palm and washed over the human woman’s bruised and bloody face. Right’s expression softened and her body went slack as Moira guided her into a deep, painless sleep.

“I suppose you’ve heard what transpired,” the Queen-Regent said as she gestured for a cloth doused with antiseptic in the other priest’s hand. “We’ll need to set her arm, but it seems like something is ruptured within her abdomen and I’d like to see to that immediately.”

“You knew?” The bite in Wrathion’s voice caused the priest beside Moira to raise his head, startled. “You knew that this would happen?”

Moira, unflinching, continued to run her hands across Right’s torso, eyes glowing with the Light as she worked. “Aye. I did.”

Wrathion swayed on his heels, the air taken from his lungs in an abrupt rush as if a great weight had collided with his chest. “...why did you not inform me of this?”

“Because I was sworn to secrecy,” Moira replied, her Light-filled eyes focused on where she was using a pair of scissors to cut Right’s tunic open along the seam. “It was dangerous enough for Anduin to send the letter that he did. I was warned to be ready, but I was not given a date. It could’ve been a day or a year before he was able to act. I dinnae see what good it would do to have you stewing all that time, too.” 

“I do not understand.” It was all Wrathion could do not to let his words come out as a long hiss. “Ready for _what? What is happening in Stormwind City?_ ”

Moira tucked her chin into her collarbone as she leaned over to run her fingers over a swollen, dark bruise nestled underneath Right’s ribs. “Anduin wanted to ensure that the Alliance would remain regardless of how the situation in Stormwind turned out. He asked that if the Defias Brotherhood was successful, that we would acknowledge and respect their reclamation of the monarchy. The Council of Three Hammers sent troops and healers out to back up the Defias’ claim. The Prophet, the Lord Admiral, and the High Tinker did as well.”

The dragon’s hand rose to touch his chest, massaging the spot below where the star ruby hung. “Where is the king now? Are the Defias holding him as a prisoner?”

“I dinnae ken,” Moira shook her head, but when she turned to look at Wrathion again, her expression was soft with sorrow and sympathy. “He just told me to have faith that he would be alright.”

Wrathion closed his eyes as a wave of rage roiled through him. He saw Anduin’s face in the darkness, guarded, worn by decades of endless war and sorrow, but relentlessly optimistic. He wanted nothing more than to scream at it. When he opened his eyes, he turned to Left, who was rubbing her tear-stained cheeks. She gave him a simple nod and mouthed a single word of encouragement.

Wrathion turned and strode from the room, ignoring Moira’s shouts. He ran through the streets of the Blackrock Depths and did not stop until he reached the great molten antechamber at the cavernous entrance to the mountain. He spread his wings and launched himself through the last remaining tunnel, claws narrowly missing the heads of a patrol of Dark Iron rangers returning from their late afternoon rounds, until he was out in the fresh air and climbing towards the blue sky.

Wrathion spotted the distant white strip of Stormwind City, gleaming where it always was at the edge of Elwynn forest, where the land ended at the western coast. He turned towards it and flew with as much speed as he was able to muster. The rocky terrain of the Burning Steppes gave way to the yellowing autumn canopies of Elwynn Forest and finally the long winding road to Stormwind City. He spotted the iron spear launches lining the outer walls and rooftops. But none of them were manned. There were no guards to sound the alarm.

The streets below were filled with people. A chaos of sounds roared through the city like the ocean waves but Wrathion ignored them, even as the shouting grew louder beneath his gliding shadow. He was focused on reaching one particular tower in Stormwind Keep.

His curl-tipped boots came to rest with a heavy thump on the stone tiles of the king’s balcony. The plants were dry and withered, the flowers wrinkled and rotting at their browning, dry tips. Wrathion extended his hand and in an explosive blast of fire destroyed the glass-lined double doors. Shattered glass and splintered chunks of the still-burning wood frame crunched beneath his boots as he rushed inside.

The name he had intended to shout curled and died on his tongue. He knew the moment he stood in the middle of the king’s cold parlor that the royal quarters were empty. Anduin’s scent was everywhere, but the man had not been in his quarters for some time. The fireplace’s hearth was cold and held only ashes. Every window was shut against the early autumn air. The dragon’s brows furrowed as he felt the tug from the remnants of some dispelled enchantment on not just one but all the windows.

Wrathion strode from the parlor towards the bedroom, jerking back as he realized that the double-doors were not open but missing entirely; the door frame damaged as if the hinges themselves had been torn off at some point. The large bed was unmade, sheets rumpled, the doors to the closet left open. Anduin’s fine tunics rippled on their hangers under Wrathion’s claws as he brushed his hand across them, releasing the scent of the fresh detergent. He found the bathroom equally empty, his hearts twisting with anxiety by the realization that the door to that room was also missing. In the hidden compartment behind the mirror, the long list of medicines was still there, but the bottles they referenced weren’t.

He threw open drawers in the bedroom, despair settling in when he realized that each and every potion was gone. His eyes snapped to an unfamiliar stack of books on the dresser. Wrathion’s claws flipped through the pages of one and the briefest flicker of desperate hope bubbled up as he realized they were someone’s journals. His hearts sank just as quickly when he realized that he did not recognize the handwriting and that the dates on the pages were far too old. With hands on his hips, Wrathion walked in circles around the empty room, occasionally tearing his fingers through his hair. Red eyes flashed back at him when he glanced at himself in the full-length mirror.

Dropping to his knees by the bed, Wrathion searched in vain for the prosthesis. He rationalized that this should be a good sign as it likely meant that the instrument was with the king, but the thought brought him little comfort. The king’s crutches lay discarded on the floor in the spot where he usually kept them while he slept. His cane, the same one he’d had since Pandaria, lay on top of the bed. It was missing the strip of teal windwool silk. Wrathion picked up the well-worn piece of wood and turned it over in his hands. An overwhelming urge to crawl beneath the covers and cling to the pillows seized him. Instead, he gently placed the cane back on the bed, smoothing a wrinkle from the comforter. 

No one paid the Earth-Warder any mind as he descended down the stairs of the king’s tower and through the great stone halls. The Keep was in chaos. Every guard was missing from their posts, but the floors carried constant streams of people rushing through with concerns far greater than a wandering dragon. Former servants were bringing up food and medical supplies from the stores. The smell of a hearty beef and onion stew and fresh baking bread wafted out from the kitchens. Someone was playing music on the grand piano in the ballroom, the soothing melody interlaced with the strings of a lyre as it traveled through the Keep. 

Humans wearing red bandanas seemed to be giving directions to convert the War Room into a kind of headquarters where a blood elf with a tall blonde ponytail and a thick scar at her throat was using her hands to direct the chaos. Two human women stood at the mission table, arranging Stormwind’s battle tokens to suit their own purposes. One was dressed in a rogue’s form-fitting charcoal black leathers, her long dark brown hair plaited into a thick braid. Her chest armor and pauldrons lay on the ground beside her, leaving her equipped mostly bare from the chest up but for a simple short-sleeved tunic tucked into the large belt at her waist. She was distracted by her need to nurse thick layers of frighteningly bloody bandages covering the left side of her neck and shoulder, the same arm bound into a sling. The other woman wore a nobleman’s knee-length black coat with gold embroidery and a red bandana tied around her neck, where her short brown hair fell above her shoulders in wind-swept waves. Her green eyes snapped up and glared at Wrathion with a look that made him instinctively reach for the sword at his belt. He turned and quickly walked away. He had given the same very look to many an unfortunate stranger who had wandered into the various spots where he had held impromptu meetings for Blacktalon. _Go away or I will shatter your kneecaps._

Wrathion caught the eye of a girl he recognized, one who would sometimes bump into him when she came to deliver mail to the king’s parlor. Her hair was in disarray, face pale, and she carried a basket filled with fresh bandages and bottles of glowing red and blue potions.

“Please, where is the king?” Restraint and decorum had drained from his voice. He was almost pleading.

The young woman’s brown eyes widened in recognition, her hand flying to her face, but there was no malice or fear. Only a slight hint of awe and wonder.

“He’s gone, Your Highness,” she said.

“Dead?” His voice cracked on the word.

“I don’t know,” the woman shook her head. “Just gone. I’m so sorry.”

Someone shouted her name. Without a curtsey or a bow, the young woman turned on her heel and disappeared down the hallway. Wrathion resumed his meandering path through the Keep, searching for signs of more familiar faces. The oppressive confinement of the castle’s stone hallways was suddenly unbearable, the bone-chilling damp that was a hallmark of the season clinging to both the stones and his skin, and he rushed to make his way outside. He caught a glimpse of the throne, the stones torn up, the stained glass shattered. Dents had been knocked into the lion’s golden eyes, their snouts and paws broken off.

The rich gardens were torn with signs of a battle. Dried blood clung to the broken green-leafed branches and delicate climbing vines, where spectrums of many-colored bruised flowers still perched. Wrathion stood and stared for several moments at the edge of the lake to comprehend the dangling, broken chain between two stone pillars, where a fragment of his father’s iron jaw once hung and blazed with the remnants of an eternal corrupted fire, now curiously missing. The trees around the lake seemed miraculously untouched, turning yellow, orange, and red at the edges. A few of their leaves crunched beneath Wrathion’s boots as he walked towards the Dwarven District.

The entire city seemed swept up in a frenzied celebration. Some shop doors were thrown open, jewelry strewn, forgotten and ignored, across the streets, others were being boarded up. Bars and restaurants had dragged tables outside where people were congregating with food and kegs of beer. Any person, dwarf, gnome, kaldorei or draenei who was capable of playing an instrument seemed as if they were doing so. Wrathion twisted and turned through the crowds. Always before he had dreaded the suffocating feeling of exposure when he strolled down Stormwind’s streets, but now it seemed difficult to get anyone’s attention. He asked the same question over and over.

“No, sir, I haven’t,” an old dwarven woman said as she offered him a freshly charred sausage from her grill. 

“Must be dead,” a young cobbler said with a shrug as he worked on fixing a broken boot heel. “That’s what they do with the king in these types of situations, isn’t it?”

An elderly gnome with a pink beard that fell down to his knees took a moment from his work changing bandages at the open-air infirmary in the Cathedral Square to shake his head in sympathy.

“Gone.”

Stormwind Harbor was quiet. Wrathion descended down the long wall of steps, staring out over the glistening ocean. The sinking afternoon sun cast long shadows over the damp boards and abandoned cargo. Kul Tiran’s green anchor flags flapped amongst the Stormwind blue and gold lions. Wrathion walked down the length of the shipyard, listening to the sound of the waves lapping at the legs of the docks and the stone sea barrier. He came to a stop by a small spot where he had a clear view of the ocean, struggling to gain control over his breathing.

“You alright, mate?”

The dragon turned to find that he was not alone. Near a stone wall covered in morning glory hanging vines, next to the stone head of a lion fountain, was a wooden bench where a tall, stocky man in loose cotton pants and a sailor’s open-chested tunic sat. His long brown hair was pulled over one shoulder. Wrathion’s eyes fell to the man’s lap, where the red-haired spymaster was resting his head, in a deep sleep.

A smile flickered across the sailor’s sun-beaten face as he turned to look down fondly, his large, calloused hand idly stroking the sleeping man's graying red hair, the other protectively lain across his narrow hip. “Don’t mind him, he’s just having a good and proper rest. He’s been very tired for a long while.”

The sailor adjusted the sheepskin collar of the heavy leather coat that covered most of the spymaster’s prone body like a blanket, pulling it higher to protect him from the cool sea breeze. He raised his head to meet Wrathion’s sorrowful red gaze.

“You look a bit put out yourself, if you don’t mind my saying so,” the sailor said, tilting his head towards the neighboring empty bench on the other side of the small rippling fountain. “This bench is free for the taking. Well, everything in Stormwind is free for the taking now, but...”

“No,” Wrathion curled his claws in towards his palms, blinking back the heat that was rising to his eyes. “Thank you. I am looking for someone. I can’t seem to find him.”

The sailor’s brows kit together in a sympathetic look of worry. “Ah, I’m sorry. I hope you find who you’re looking for, friend.”

Wrathion averted his gaze towards Azeroth’s now far too wide horizon. “Thank you.”

The flight back to Blackrock was long and slow. Wrathion glided in meandering circles above the yellow-green canopies of Elwynn Forest until the sun had long set and the canopy became a seemingly endless dark ocean. The wind blew colder at his wings as he beat them against the southern-blowing drafts. The Burning Steppes’ lazy lava flows pierced the purple night with their thick, bubbling red streams, illuminating the way to Blackrock Mountain. The lake he had formed with Ebyssian lay like a mirror, reflecting the yellow swell of the full moon.

Wrathion soaked in the heat of the Blackrock Depths as he wandered the streets. He stopped by a small cart and bought a container of hearty potato and cheese soup, accepting a free chunk of crusted bread wrapped in paper the vendor was trying to distribute before closing up for the evening. The dragon returned to the small hospital, where he was directed to the small room where Right had been carried. The woman was fast asleep in one of the dwarves’ small beds, a copper pan filled with coals warming her feet in the blankets near the footboard. Left raised her head from where she sat in a small chair at Right’s bedside, hands folded on the mattress as if in prayer.

Wrathion wordlessly held out the container of soup, which Left accepted with a grateful nod. She dunked a piece of the bread into it and her eyes closed in pleasure as she sank her fangs into the broth-soaked crust. The dragon stood staring down at his agent’s bandaged form, watching the rise and fall of her chest, brushing his claws over the upturned palm of Right’s limp hand.

“Did you find anything?” Left asked, quietly.

Wrathion shook his head.

“What do you know?” he asked.

Left shook her head before dipping another bite of soup-drenched bread into her mouth. “Right was unable to get close to him. There were separate organizations in the city watching him: the Stormwind guard, SI:7, agents of the Church, private entities hired by various noble houses, not to mention assassination attempts by the Scarlet Crusade who now consider him to be the embodiment of evil on Azeroth.”

Left used the spoon to stir a chunk of softened potato, blowing gently to cool the temperature.

“As for the Defias uprising, we were both utterly blindsided by it. Right is far more familiar with this area than I am and according to her, rumblings of rebellion, even the loud ones we were hearing, are common. They executed this maneuver swiftly and flawlessly. She barely had time to send a message to me signaling that she was aborting her mission and fleeing to Goldshire.” 

Left took a deep breath before tipping the container up to take a gulp of soup.

“You ought to get some rest,” Wrathion said. “I can barter for a room for you nearby in the Depths. I will watch her while you sleep.”

“No,” Left shook her head. “I’d rather not leave her side. I can sleep here if I need to.”

Her brown eyes flickered upward to meet his. “To be blunt, you look like you need the rest more than I do, Black Prince.”

Wrathion was about to protest, but a headache pounding at the front of his temples prompted him to keep his mouth shut. With a promise that he would return soon to check in, he made his way out of the Depths and the short flight up the mountain to Nefarian’s Lair.

The dragon made the slow climb up to the living quarters, where he shut himself into his room and stood staring down at his nest for several minutes. A thick coating of moss had begun to grow over the ring of pumice stones, ash, and earth that he had packed into the floor. He transformed and curled up in the center, red eyes staring over the tip of his tail at the night sky through the open balcony doors. It didn’t take long before he was back on his mortal feet, storming off to the library.

He threw open the double doors and nearly kicked the Titan orb as it swerved out of his path with a delicate twirling motion, the light within pulsing softly. It trailed after the dragon curiously as he wove through the shelves, yanking down spines until he had a generous stack in his arms, which he dumped on top of the desk.

“Wrathion?”

Ebyssian’s low voice drifted in from the entrance, the sound of his great hooves on the hardwood approaching.

“Did I wake you?” Wrathion did not look up from where he furiously flipped through the pages of the first volume.

“No,” Ebyssian admitted as he approached the desk. “I was up, listening for your return. Have you eaten?”

Wrathion’s reply was curt, the tone indicating more of a request to end the conversation. “I am not hungry.”

Worry was the dominant tone in the othe dragon’s rumbling voice. “You do not look well, brother. Are you alright?”

The cover slammed shut again, its sound echoing throughout the room. Wrathion’s claws scraped against the worn, gilded binding.

“Am I ‘ _all right?_ ’” Wrathion repeated, his voice dripping with sarcasm. His red eyes burned as he glared, fangs catching the dim candlelight in his sneer. “Am I _well_? Hm. An interesting question.”

Ebyssian’s jaw snapped shut. His eyes darkened as he watched Wrathion lean against the desk, one hand resting on his jutting hip as he pretended to study the ceiling.

“Do indulge me as I take a moment to consider this query,” Wrathion continued, running his claws across his brow. “My character, my aptitude, and my very right to exist on the surface of this sleeping Titan that has declared _me_ to be Her warder have been put on trial by a minor faction of a minor race. I’ve been beaten and insulted, torn apart from my mate, a man who I love and care for quite dearly, their _king_ , whom I have had no way of contacting since our forced separation.”

Wrathion’s closed fist struck the surface of the wood desk.

“ _And_ now, just as I begin to make peace with this insufferable religious kingdom that my dragonflight’s ancestral home shares a border with, I come to find that he’s thrown his own monarchy out to the wolves and in the process has gone _missing_ without bothering to send word to anyone, least of all _me_ , the creature I thought _he_ still cared for above all others, about what may happen to him. Now I must contend with the insulting fact that he either did not consider me a useful agent in this _plan_ , or was _incapable_ of reaching out for help because something prevented him from doing so, both of which are equally disturbing conclusions. And for all my intelligence and power, _there is absolutely nothing I can do about any of this._ ”

Wrathion picked up a book and threw it at Ebyssian. The dragon let it bounce off his shoulder, barely flinching as the cover made impact, exhaling an angry puff of hot smoke through his wide nostrils. The bones on his headdress rattled as he shifted in place upon his hooves.

“I should have _eaten_ them.” The next book was swatted down by Ebyssian’s giant paw swiping through the air. “I should have set _fire_ to their buildings and _torched the skin from their bones_ before _ripping those insufferable sneers from their faces_.” 

A third and fourth book careened into the shelves around Ebyssian. The dragon exhaled, his tail swishing nervously behind him as Wrathion began to strike at random, ripping things from his desk and sending them hurtling into the closest inanimate object or the floor.

“Anduin was chained like a common _criminal_ ,” Wrathion was shouting, tearing apart sheets of paper from his notebooks, sketches and notes flying as he shredded them. “I allowed myself to sit there and answer their petty, uninspired questions while my mate sat behind me, bound in chains, and _reeking_ of sweat and _fear_. I could have put a stop to the horrid process at any time. I could have melted the chains from our wrists, picked him up and flown us both away **BUT I DID NOT**.”

Heat rippled from Wrathion’s shoulders as he gripped under the desk and with a mighty shove tipped the entire thing over. Ebyssian stood completely still as the wood hit the ground with a giant crash, rattling the floorboards and spilling whatever was left of the desk’s contents at his hooves.

“And then what would have happened?” Ebyssian asked, his voice loud and firm as he met his brother’s enraged gaze with cool brown eyes. “Would they have struck you down with those spears the moment you became airborne? Would their archers have shot their king while he was riding, vulnerable, on your back? And if you had escaped Stormwind, where would you have gone? Could you have ferried him all the way to Blackrock with the entire Alliance at your heels? Would you have died under seige in the mountain here with him, or spent the rest of your lives on the run?”

“ **I SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST _MADE AN ATTEMPT_.**”

Wrathion spun around and with a second blast another bookshelf came crashing down, nearly taking out the one that stood next to it. Thousands of pages tumbled as covers fell open.

“ **I PUT MYSELF THERE.** ” Wrathion’s scream tore through his throat, an inhuman howl. “ **I WILLINGLY SUBMITTED TO THEM AND PLAYED THEIR GAME LIKE A FOOL. A GAME THAT I WAS NEVER INTENDED TO WIN.** ”

More shelves fell. Ebyssian remained utterly still as he watched to the side. The Titan orb had stopped moving. It floated in stasis, like a frightened animal.

“Wrathion,” Ebyssian said. “You cannot blame yourself.”

The Earth-Warder spun around, fire burning in his eyes.

“ **What would you know?** ” he hissed. “ **What use have you been to anyone in all of your ten thousand years of life?** ”

A low growl rumbled in Ebyssian’s throat.

The sound of two dragons crashing into each other reverberated through the empty halls of upper Blackrock Mountain.

Twenty minutes later, Ebyssian and Wrathion sat at opposite ends of the library, the empty hall filled with the sounds of their heavy breathing, torn dragon scales and fur littering the floor. Ebyssian touched his nose, where thick blood streamed down from his nostrils. He grunted, staring at his fingertips. Wrathion moved to the window, staring at the dark panes of dirty glass.

“He is dead,” Wrathion’s mortal voice choked.

Ebyssian wiped more blood from his nose, snout crinkling with a grimace before he licked it from his fingers. “Come, now. You cannot say that with such certainty.”

“Anduin Wrynn is either dead,” Wrathion’s voice quavered. “Or a prisoner. Alone.”

With a groan, Ebyssian pushed himself to his hooves. He crossed the length of the library, kicking aside broken shelves and books, to where Wrathion crouched at the open window, curled on the pillow covered seat.

“You no longer have to shoulder this burden on your own,” Ebyssian’s hand hovered, then came to rest on Wrathion’s shoulder. “We will find him. We will find him or we will find what has happened to him. Either way, we will banish this uncertainty that is torturing you.”

The old dragon sank down on the cushions, his hand rubbing over Wrathion’s shoulders and back, as the library was filled with the Earth-Warder’s sobs.

* * *

The heat of the cave was no longer sweltering, the pressure of the looming walls no longer as oppressive as it once had been. Wrathion emerged from the dark tunnel, faced with the same stone carvings, the same thirteen pairs of watchful eyes above a solid stone wall. He knelt before the tomb in the ash, listening to the sounds of the lava and the Azerite flowing through the veins in the rock around him. Anduin’s body lay somewhere beyond the solid stone wall. He was no longer suffocating. He was no longer breathing.

Wrathion turned at the feeling of a hand on his shoulder. Long slender fingers tipped with black claws grasped him firmly, like an anchor. A comforting heat rippled beneath the calloused skin. He felt almost no surprise as a dragon wearing the guise of a mortal woman with dark skin and long, dark brown hair that fell in thick waves down to her waist stepped forward. The folds of her billowing, silk black pants rustled as she knelt beside him. Her eyes were a dark, deep brown, like the color of the earth after the rain.

“This endeavor is foolish,” Wrathion heard himself say in draconic.

A small hum reverberated in her throat, gentle, like the heartbeat of the mountain.

“How so?” she asked, her low, crackling voice passive and without judgement.

Wrathion inhaled, staring at the wall of stone before them. “Even if I cleanse the corruption, even if I restart the incubation process, there is no guarantee that those children will remain uncorrupted. The voices of the Old Gods are loudest in the places of the earth that are our domain. In guarding it, we make ourselves most vulnerable to their influence.”

The other dragon remained quiet. She plucked white and gray pumice stones from the ash around them, dusting the grit from their porous surfaces as best she could, and then arranging them in a tidy circle before them.

“Perhaps it would be best to just let the Black Dragonflight die,” Wrathion felt the tiring feeling of tears prick once again at the rims of his sore eyes. “What need does Azeroth have for the protection of weakened earth dragons?”

Nyxondra set the last pumice stone in place. She picked up his right hand and pulled it to rest in her lap, tracing his palm lines with her warm claw.

“I remember these hands,” she said, her voice almost light with humor. “So small back then. Always reaching for the inside of the shell. It was as if you were attempting to pick a lock that would free you sooner than your siblings.”

Wrathion’s fingers twitched. “How could you possibly remember. You were dead long before I hatched. And one egg looks just the same as another.”

Another hum, this one more like a small laugh, drew a shameful warmth to Wrathion’s cheeks. Her fingers pressed into his palms and knuckles, massaging an inhumanly strong heat into them.

“I remember all of you. I know each and every one of you by your cries. You were all quite excited to speak to each other and see the outside world.”

Wrathion’s pulse leapt at the sudden presence of another touch. A black dragon whelp was nestling into his side. She was no bigger than his hand, carrying similar scars to his around her thin ankles and wrists. A sister was struggling to climb on top of her and nuzzle her small face into the crook of his elbow. They were joined by two brothers, then a third, and a fourth. Soon Wrathion was sitting amongst twenty or so warm black dragon whelps, all squirming to climb on his shoulders or sit in his lap. His arms gathered as many of them as he could and he let them share his warmth. He realized, suddenly, that he, too, remembered them.

“All of them are here with me, now, beyond the veil,” Nyxondra smiled patiently, sadly, reaching to tuck his hair behind the arc of his slightly pointed ear. “Except you.”

Wrathion closed his eyes. Her touch burned with a soothing heat that felt achingly familiar. He leaned into it, letting her run her claws over his head. The weight of the whelps felt like a balm on his tired, exhausted limbs. His headache melted away, replaced by the calm, steady beating of their many fluttering hearts.

“You are the leader of our dragonflight now, dear one” Nyxondra continued, shifting so that she was facing him. Her large brown eyes seemed to hold the depths of the universe the way Neltharion’s wings had done. “You’re so young, still, but you have a keen mind and two good, strong hearts. Both of which you have dedicated most of your life to pitting against the lurking primordial whispers.”

Her claws cupped his chin, thumbs brushing across the scale-freckled contours of his cheekbones. She traced a line down from the tip of his nose to the dip in the center of his chest, where a great heat rippled beneath his ribs.

“Azeroth’s needs do not matter. That the Black Dragonflight exists is enough to justify their decision to live.“

The heat burned so strongly in his chest, Wrathion felt as if it would rip him apart. His ribs stayed closed and his hands flew to them, attempting to grasp at the traces of lights that fluttered there in constellations like stars. The pulse of the Titans beat in time with his hearts, an eternal rhythm that he could feel reverberating through time and the fabric of the cosmos. The weight of the whelps faded around him, their soft chirps lost in the sound of Azerite waves and the steady beating of a sleeping Titan’s lungs.

Wrathion awoke, a gasp escaping from his draconic teeth. He found himself curled up in his nest in Nefarian’s old bedroom, the cool autumn breeze drifting in from the open windows. Ebyssian slept on the floor beside the nest, the sound of his soft snores filling the room. Wrathion shuddered, rising to his claws. He turned around twice before settling down again, allowing himself to drift back to sleep to the sound of his brother’s steady hearts.

* * *

The faint clinking of Kalecgos’ silver buckles at the thighs of his soft black boots echoed down the hall between Ebyssian’s thudding hoofbeats as they walked towards the Rookery. Kalecgos carried a bottle of wine tucked in one arm, the other hand resting on the flap of his leather traveling satchel.

“Thank you again for the invitation,” Kalecgos said. “I’m sorry I couldn’t bring better news from Kul Tiras regarding Jaina’s nephew. It feels so good to stretch my wings for a bit in warmer temperatures.”

“Not at all. The pleasure is mine,” Ebyssian replied. “Your company is most appreciated. It gets a bit lonely out here with just the two of us.”

“I’m excited to see what both of you have been up to,” Kalecgos continued. “Your letter was teasingly brief, although I’d attribute that more to your Highmountain-influenced temperament.”

“Some things are best said in person, Spell-Weaver,” Ebyssian shrugged, running a hand over one antler as he smiled. “And an attempt to do so is often not worth the ink or the parchment.”

The Rookery’s furnaces blazed bright. The collection of corrupted eggs were absent. In their place sat a nest of pumice rock and ash elevated on top of a fire pit. Wrathion knelt before it, stoking the fire in the bed of coals below. A single egg sat in the center of the nest, dark copper red with black curving spines. Kalecgos froze in his footsteps at the sight of it. Not a trace of corruption lingered on the shell. Instead, it radiated a gentle, living heat.

For a moment, the spell-weaver did not speak. When Wrathion turned around, the corners of his lips curved upward at the sight of a film of tears in Kalecgos’ violet eyes.

“By the Titans,” the blue dragon whispered, his voice cracking in his throat. “...may I?”

Wrathion shifted backwards on his heels. “Yes, of course. You may approach, Spell-Weaver.”

Under the Earth-Warder’s watchful eyes, Kalecgos handed Ebyssian the wine bottle and crept forward. He knelt down beside Wrathion, the folds of his silver-embroidered cloak draping around him. One hand ran across the light blue stubble on his jaw, covering his trembling mouth.

“It’s so beautiful,” he said. “I never thought I would live to see another one. I thought we were done.”

Wrathion reached out to lay his palm across the rough, opalescent shell. The spines shuddered and then retracted at the first touch, allowing him to run his palm across the oval dome.

“How long?” Kalecgos asked.

Wrathion tilted his head towards the shell, dark hair spilling over his shoulder as the edge of his hoop earring caught the light. “Three weeks have passed since I first detected signs of re-incubation. I am loath to poke and prod more than is absolutely necessary, but my best measurements place the egg’s age at just nearly one Azerothian year old.”

“Ah,” Kalecgos nodded. “So, still quite a ways off from hatching.”

“Yes.” Wrathion withdrew his hand and with a small sigh. The spines extracted again, protecting the egg with their sharp embrace. “Although I cannot say how the stasis may have affected the embryo’s growth. We are in, as they say, uncharted territory.”

Kalecgos raised his shoulders, reaching to brush a strand of his blue hair back from his wide brow. “I suppose we’ll...forgive me, _you_ will just have to wait and see, then.”

Wrathion inclined his chin, his smile crawling a fraction wider, sincere in its warmth and the crinkle it gave to his red eyes. “That is the plan. _We_ dragons will just have to wait and see.” 

Ebyssian stepped forward to settle on one of the benches, twisting the cork free of the wine bottle. The furnace flames from behind the egg illuminated its shell, enveloping the entire structure in a fiery glow. Deep within, a small body curled and turned over.

* * *

The Burning Steppes in late autumn were marked by their strange cacophony of cold and hot air pressure. The mid-southern region of the Eastern Kingdoms where the mountains nestled grew colder as Azeroth tilted away from the sun in Her orbit, as was customary for the season. The spots in the earth that cradled pools of lava from the rippling holes in the mountains still boiled pockets of the air with heat. This made for a somewhat turbulent flight as Wrathion took his usual break to stretch his wings in the afternoon air. He could not always spot the bends in the chaotic wind patterns and he would have to react quickly to counter the turbulence. He learned that it was far easier to move with the wind than against it. Drifting a mile or two off course was often far preferable to straining against a sudden downdraft that would not yield. With his internal body temperature, he could not certainly call the Burning Steppes cold, although he knew that the Dark Iron dwarves, accustomed to living nestled between lava flows, grumbled more during the season. 

A strong breeze blasted Wrathion’s body and he stiffened his wings, turning and letting it blow him upward. His gaze drifted across the trails south of the Ruins of Thaurissan. In the late afternoon sun, he saw long shadows from boulders and hills stretch across the trails. A small shadow caught his eyes, a traveler, taller than a dwarf but smaller than an ogre. It was unusual to see a human wandering alone in the Steppes, more so since the revolution in the Kingdom of Stormwind, which had kept even the most adventurous citizens of Redridge home in their region to aid in the rebuilding of Lakeshire.

Wrathion’s red eyes snapped towards the horizon as he careened, aiming himself once again for the easternmost peak, beyond which the marshy Wetlands and the fire-torn Blasted Lands lay. The wind rustled his scales and pushed at the hair in his beard. His stomach rumbled but he ignored it. Ebyssian would most likely bring back extra meat from his hunt. Wrathion tucked his claws in towards his stomach and rolled, letting the wind take him upward.

His red eyes flickered once again towards the figure, slowly making their way down the road. The terrain was rough, torn with giant holes and boulders, and the human seemed to be walking with a limp. They leaned heavily into the support of a tall wooden staff as they picked their way across the terrain. Wrathion’s sharp eyes spotted a strip of teal fabric wrapped around the middle of the wood, a bright, colorful spot amidst the charcoal-singed rocks…

Wrathion’s empty stomach plummeted. The wind hit his flinching wings and he tumbled down, just catching himself before a perpendicular draft knocked him backwards. He stabilized and twisted his neck, horns arcing as he studied the small, thin shadow. His mind seemed to grow blank. Then, the skin of his wings snapped as he unfurled both limbs and tilted, swerving around so that he now faced a northern direction. With a push, he began to glide down towards the ground, hurtling towards the limping figure on the path.

His blood pounded in his veins and the wind whistled at a shrill tone in his ears. He overshot the figure and hit the ground several yards ahead, flapping up a giant cloud of dust and ash. He miscalculated the amount of time it would take to transform and his gloved hands skidded in the dirt with the soles of his soft leather boots, red sash tangling around his legs. He dug his heels into the earth and pushed himself up. The human figure had noticed him and quickened their pace, staggering every other step. He was moving as fast as he could on his injured leg, but still nowhere near a dragon’s inhuman speed. Wrathion broke into a run, the gold embroidered ends of his sash banging against his knees. He made it just in time to catch the former king as he pitched forward, the staff falling from his gloved hand and clattering on the ground.

Anduin’s arms slid around the dragon’s neck as his left knee gave out. Wrathion tightened his grip around the other man’s chest to support him as he stumbled. The dragon heard himself gasp as he inhaled the human’s scent, laced with ash and dirt from the road. Anduin’s nose burrowed in the front of his tunic, slipping, the air squeezed from his lungs as the dragon clutched him. After a moment, Wrathion felt Anduin’s knee lock and heard his boots scrape against the dirt as he found his strength again and was able to stand on his own, pressing his bandage-wrapped face into the warm shoulder. The dragon’s hands trembled where they clutched the human’s shoulder blades and he did not trust himself to speak. Hot tears ran down his scaled cheeks, into the priest’s hood. He let a loud, strangled sob, shoulders heaving beneath where Anduin’s arms still clung.

“You found me,” Anduin teased, his voice light and weak.

“ _I_ found you?” When Wrathion spoke, his voice came at a high pitch, almost hysterical with its incredulity. “ _I_ found _you_...?”

Anduin laughed, so quiet a sound that it was almost taken by the wind. 

“It’s good to see you,” Anduin said.

Fresh tears rose to Wrathion’s eyes, his arms tightening. “And you.”

“I’d hoped you’d be here. By the Light, I am so very glad that I was right...”

“Yes, of course,” Wrathion sputtered. “Of course, _of course_ I was here.”

As the dragon pulled back, the grip of his claws on the priest’s arms tightened. His shimmering eyes widened and the red wisps of light that trailed from the corners brightened.

“Your face,” he choked on his own voice as the words tentatively came forth.

Anduin reached up to touch his own cheek with the tips of his gloved fingers. Beneath the dirty wraps of bandages, his brows arched. “I’d almost forgotten.”

Anduin released his grip on Wrathion’s shoulders. The dragon’s claws tightened around the human’s waist, but he seemed capable of standing on his own. He watched as Anduin pushed back his hood, fumbling for where the gauze was secured with a knot. After a few moments, the bandages slid off, revealing his slightly sweaty and dirt-crusted face, but very much whole and in good health.

“Just a disguise, so that I wouldn’t get attacked by anyone who might be curious to find out if the former King of Stormwind had any valuables on his person to steal.”

Though Anduin was smiling, Wrathion’s frown only deepened as his eyes continued to search for some sign of injury. “Are you hurt at all?”

“No, I’m fine, really,” Anduin murmured. “Just tired. Very tired. I’ve walked a long way and...I’m just a bit thirsty.”

“ _Thirsty?_ ” Wrathion’s fingers tightened their grip on Anduin’s shoulders, the tips of his claws piercing the thick brown wool. For the first time, he noticed how blistered and cracked the human’s lips were and his lightly freckled skin looked ashen and dry. “When was the last time you drank water?”

Anduin’s gray-blue eyes were unfocused, flickering towards a spot somewhere beyond Wrathion’s shoulder. He took an alarming amount of time to think as he tried to answer the question, his speech coming slow, swaying on unstable legs between Wrathion’s hands. “...yesterday......no. _This_ morning.”

A faint, white fear seized Wrathion at the dry sound of Anduin’s tongue on the roof of his mouth as he struggled to string his words together into a coherent sentence.

“That’s right,” Anduin slurred, eyebrows furrowing. “I had a chance to refill my canteen...some time ago....but, I’ve been rationing.”

“There is a spring not far, I will take you there at once.” Wrathion’s hearts began to pound. He took a step back and slid his grip down Anduin’s arms until he had the priest’s hands resting in his. The dragon’s mortal skin and clothes started to shimmer. “My dear, do you think that you have the strength to ride?”

Anduin’s brows furrowed slightly. His grasp tightened with resistance, as if he were reluctant to let go. 

“Ride?” His gray-blue eyes snapped open wider. “O-oh! You mean...”

Anduin’s voice trailed off. He finally released Wrathion’s hands, though his own remained suspended in mid-air, as if he wanted to pull the dragon back to him. He laughed, nervously.

“Yes, I suppose...though, I can’t say that I’ve ever once tried…”

Before he had a chance to finish his sentence, a wind kicked up as Wrathion transformed in a haze of ashen dust. Anduin threw his cloak across his face to protect himself from the blast. When the wind settled enough for him to peek over the edge of his arm, his face paled at the sight of an ebony-scaled dragon standing before him. Even with his sunset-colored wings folded by his sides, Wrathion was immense. Heat rippled from his familiar red eyes in simple sky-bound wisps as he lowered his head to be level with Anduin’s, the dark scaled brows and cheeks drawn in a gentle expression. 

For a moment, Anduin stood as if stunned. Then, he raised his hands, reaching out as he took two limping steps forward. His palms came to rest on the tip of Wrathion’s snout, just above the curl of his toothy smile but below the dark horn.

Anduin’s cracked lips broke into a shaking smile as he continued to use his hands to pet Wrathion’s scales. His voice croaked when he spoke. “You’re certainly not the little whelp who used to sit on my shoulders.”

Wrathion opened his mouth to speak but under Anduin’s cool, calloused touch, a soft rumble began to rise in his throat. He closed his eyes and allowed himself a moment longer, listening to Anduin speak as if in a dream.

“You did promise me a ride once,” the priest said, his strained, rasping voice betraying the small smile as he stroked Wrathion’s snout, reaching under to his bearded chin. “A long time ago. I’m afraid I’m the one who ended up aging ten years in one night, though...”

“ **Come,** ” Wrathion’s voice loomed above the purr reverberating in his throat. “ **Climb upon my back.** ”

Wrathion refused to wince as he felt the toes of Anduin’s boots scrape against the scales on the side of his neck during the awkward climb. Before he could ask if he should move to where Anduin could first climb onto a small boulder to use as a boost, the priest was straddling his neck, right behind his horned crest. Wrathion could count on one hand the number of times he had carried a mortal in flight and though he had little idea of what to expect, Anduin was still lighter than he had anticipated. The pressure from his knees pressing into his neck was weak, his hands gentle, so discerningly fragile and so very mortal. They would have to fly low to the ground, Wrathion decided. And _slowly_ , far more slowly than he had ever flown before, no matter how the memory of Anduin’s dry mouth and speech spurned his worry, at least until he could be sure of the priest’s grip.

“ **Say the word when you are ready.** ” Wrathion tried to keep his voice light, cheerful, letting slip no clue of the anxious weight which now sank heavy in his gut.

Anduin’s left knee pressed into his neck just a fraction tighter, the light pressure sending a tingle down the ridges of the dragon’s spine.

“I suppose I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.” 

It was difficult not to notice the slight quiver in Anduin’s voice, the absence of its well-honed statesmanlike sureness. Wrathion could not be sure if it was from fear or fatigue or perhaps both. It did not matter; he tried to shake the worry from his breast as he extended his wings and began to trot down the path. With a few flaps and a hop, he began to rise and Anduin let out a gasp. Both fingers and knees tightened as Anduin ducked to shield himself against the sudden wind.

The flight to the small spring Wrathion had created with Ebyssian was brief, in theory, lengthened only by the agonizing worry that at any moment a sudden gale would rip Anduin from his back and send the man falling to the earth. The human managed to keep his grip, even through the jolt from Wrathion’s landing. Wrathion stifled his grunt of pain as he felt Anduin’s boot scrape against the side of his neck in his haste to scramble down. Anduin stumbled on his feet and scrambled towards the edge of the lake with a desperate urgency that betrayed the extent of his thirst. He collapsed, sliding forward across the dirt on his stomach, and began to scoop handfuls of the cool, crystal clear water into his mouth, finally dunking his chin below the surface so he could take uninhibited gulps, only stopping for the occasional gasping breath and to splash his face. 

Wrathion shuffled on his claws, pacing back and forth while he waited. Finally, he shifted back into his mortal form and approached Anduin’s side, kneeling beside him in the dirt. His hand brushed the top of Anduin’s head, stopping at the loose knot he had tied his blond hair back into.

“Oh, Light,” Anduin murmured, wiping the back of his hand across his shaking smile. “I’ve never had a drink that tasted so good.”

“Please, have as much as you like.” His claws ran down the back of Anduin’s neck and then trailed the length of his spine. The next phrase sounded strange even before it left Wrathion’s uncertain tongue. “When you are ready, I will take you to my home.”

* * *

The bedroom was mostly empty apart from the large nest of moss, ash, and soft stone at the center, where Anduin lay on his aching back, sore limbs splayed spread-eagle. His prosthesis lay on the floor in a pile beside the nest, along with his satchel, staff, bow. He was content to stay still in just his small clothes and soak in the incredible amount of warmth that seemed to radiate from every wall and even the floor. Wrathion had shut the double doors to the balcony they had landed on in addition to every window, keeping the heat contained. Before he left, the dragon had also lit the numerous wax candles that sat in thick clusters on the floor and small iron shelves nailed into the stone walls. 

Anduin felt as if he ought to fall asleep, but adrenaline from the flight up the tall mountain still coursed through his veins and all he could do was stare at the ceiling while his mind buzzed. It almost didn’t seem real. If not for the occasional sharp pain in his limbs, he would have strongly believed that he’d died of exposure while trying to cross the Burning Steppes alone without a mount.

The sound of heavy footsteps approaching drew him up onto his elbows with a wince. Wrathion’s draconic form slipped through the large doorway, carrying the crispy flank of some kind of animal between his teeth. He set the hunk down on a clean spot on the floor next to the part of the nest where Anduin lay. Anduin’s empty stomach clenched at the scent of well-cooked, steaming meat.

“This is some goat leftover from Ebyssian’s morning hunt,” Wrathion’s red eyes were uncharacteristically frantic as he crouched down on his mortal heels, pulling a knife from his waist and using it to carve slices of the juicy reddish-brown meat. “It’s still fresh and should now be cooked to where you can safely digest it.”

Anduin sank his teeth into the first slice he took from Wrathion’s claws, closing his eyes as he sucked the bloody juices. It was almost too well cooked, tough enough to make his jaw ache from the chewing, and gritty with the dark burnt bits around the edges, but it wasn’t long before he devoured the entire strip and reached for a second one. Then a third.

“I cannot feed you vegetables,” Wrathion said, bitterly, as he watched Anduin eat. “We have _no_ running water. I do not have a _bed_.”

When Anduin finished, he took his time licking his fingers and palms clean, grateful for every bit of flavor from the freshly cooked food.

“I don’t know what you mean; I’m lying in one right now.” Anduin smiled as he patted the mossy ground beside him. “It’s very comfortable, too, far better than anything I’ve slept in for weeks.”

He realized a fraction too late that this might not have been the best thing to say to ease Wrathion’s concerns. The dragon’s eyes began to shimmer once again with the threat of tears before he ducked his head and sank to his knees, blinking furiously. Wrathion quickly occupied himself with the task of checking Anduin’s legs. He picked up Anduin’s foot, warm, gentle fingers pressing to the sole and rubbing each toe in turn as he searched for signs of injury.

After a moment, Wrathion all but howled as he tightened his grip. “You have _blisters_!” 

Anduin laughed as he tried to kick free. “Wrathion, it’s nothing. They will heal.”

The dragon turned his gaze towards the end of Anduin’s right leg, which was swollen and bruised at the end, near the amputation scar. His claws twitched, but he did not reach to touch it, instead running his hand up and down the length of the tense muscles in Anduin’s left calf as he continued to blink back tears.

“Come here,” Anduin lifted his arms. “Let me lie with you for a moment.”

“The nearest fresh water source is at least an hour’s walk from here,” Wrathion murmured as he crawled forward. “And it’s filled with silt.”

“Then I’ll walk an hour and back to bathe and fetch water,” Anduin reasoned with a shrug, reaching up to gently stroke Wrathion’s face. “And I’ll find some way to filter and boil the water I drink.”

Wrathion’s eyes darkened. Anduin felt cold terror run through him as the dragon snatched his hand, examining the thick, burned band of scar tissue around his right wrist.

“Just an accident,” Anduin forced a smile as he tried to twist his wrist free. “Oh, you’re hurt as well.”

With a quick prayer, the Light blossomed at his fingertips as he reached for a sore spot on Wrathion’s neck, where a bit of skin had been torn away. A memory of his boot scraping against scales guiltily crossed his mind. The dragon’s eyes blew open, then narrowed.

“ _Anduin Llane Wrynn_!” Wrathion shouted, almost at the top of his lungs, as his claws tightened painfully around the priest’s wrist. “Don’t you _dare_ expend _any_ energy channeling the Light to heal my _minor scrapes_.”

“It’s no trouble,” Anduin laughed. As the blessed glow of the Light died, Wrathion’s skin darkened, completely restored. 

The dragon shook his head, relinquishing his grip to rub at the newly-healed patch of skin on his neck. Anduin’s exploring fingers found their way to Wrathion’s chin, where they paused to stroke the dragon’s dark beard.

“I’m guessing starting a fire won’t be an issue here, at least?” the priest asked.

“There are kitchens,” Wrathion muttered. “Though, they ideally should be cleaned first.”

Anduin groaned with delight, making Wrathion start.

“ _Kitchens_ ,” Anduin teased, gently coaxing Wrathion down beside him in the nest. “Tell me more of the unparalleled luxuries this mountain contains, Earth-Warder.”

Wrathion’s cheeks darkened. He allowed Anduin to wrap his arms around his shoulders, pulling his head closer. The priest laid a gentle kiss on his furrowed brow and inhaled deeply as he buried his human nose into the dragon’s hair. The comforting smell of Wrathion’s mortal skin, tinged with charcoal brought back memories of sitting with him in his old parlor, tucked into his side as they shared wine and dessert in front of the roaring hearth.

“Ah,” Anduin sighed. “So, let’s see, we have water and cooking figured out. And clearly there are wild goats to hunt. I also spotted some worgs, spiders, and crabs along the way, so plenty of variety in the meat.”

“We can get vegetables and bread from trading with the Dark Iron clan,” Wrathion said. “I’m sure that the Queen-Regent would be more than happy to help with regular supply exchange…”

“Oh, Light, I’ve almost forgotten the taste of freshly baked dwarven bread,” Anduin groaned. “I’m sure I can harvest some of my own vegetables as well. The herbs here are tough but nutritious, when you can find them. I’ve been mostly living off mushrooms and weeds from the brush...”

As Anduin spoke, he felt his eyelids grow heavy. Wrathion’s warm body curled against his combined with the weight of the rich meat settling into his stomach was bringing out the weariness in his muscles. He realized that his mind wouldn’t have the strength to fight it.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, placing another kiss on Wrathion’s temple, tightening his arms as if that would keep him awake. “...I’m afraid I’m falling asleep…”

Wrathion turned around, pushing himself up on his palms, taking Andun’s hand away from his shoulder and grasping it between his claws. “Apologies are hardly necessary. Rest.”

The dragon gently nudged Anduin’s body and he obliged, rolling over onto his left side. A raw groan tore from Anduin’s mouth, tears pricking in the corners of his eyes as he felt the heat from Wrathion’s mortal body sweep up his back as the dragon lay down beside him, cradling him from behind, soothing the aches in his throbbing bones and sore muscles.

“...will you be here when I wake up?” Anduin heard himself murmur, the sight of the fresh, earthen-smelling moss already darkening as his eyelids fluttered.

Wrathion pressed his hand to Anduin’s chest. He seemed almost surprised by the resistance he found there from the rings and Tiffin’s locket on the chain around the priest’s neck. “Yes. Yes, of course, my dear.”

Anduin whimpered as he felt Wrathion’s warm hand come to rest on his sore hip, pressing his heat into the muscle and bone. A single tear finally released from his eye, rolling down his cheek then nose before it became absorbed in the moss.

“...that’s good…” he heard himself whisper before exhaustion overtook him and he slipped into unconsciousness.

* * *

The familiar scent of earth and charcoal that the dragon normally inhaled upon waking was tainted by a familiar but strange musk. Wrathion stirred, confused when he felt his bare mortal feet slide across the moss-covered bottom of his nest. His arm swept across the empty length of it and with a jolt of terror he sat up, his hearts beginning to pound. The nest was empty; he was its sole occupant. Anduin’s possessions lay where he had left them on the floor the night before. Wrathion whipped his head around, blinking in the bright morning sun that streamed in through the windows.

The sound of something moving and a sharp banging in the bathroom drew his attention. He scrambled to his feet and swiftly padded into the bathroom. Anduin was sitting at the far edge of the large in-ground basin, still dressed in only his smallclothes, fiddling with the knobs of the complaining pipes. The morning light spilled over the thick scars that ran across his back. The sight was confusingly discerning. Wrathion felt a chill run across his shoulders and he reached to clutch the doorway for support.

“I’m sorry,” Anduin smiled as he turned to look over his shoulder, his greasy blond hair spilling loose over his face. “Did I wake you? I thought I should try and take a bath.”

Wrathion shook his head as he stepped closer, pushing the feelings of uncertainty down as he forced a smirk across his face. “So spoiled, Your Majesty. Did you not listen to a word that came out of my mouth yesterday?”

Anduin’s eyes widened as he clasped his palm to his forehead with a groan. “I’m sorry, I completely forgot. You have no running water.”

“That’s right,” Wrathion hummed as he knelt down beside the priest, reaching over to tuck a strand of greasy hair behind the man’s ear with shaking claws. His eyes flicked down. Anduin’s right leg was more or less as swollen as it had been the day before, though some of the dark purple bruises now looked as if they were turning yellow and healing.

“I can take you to a river to wash,” Wrathion promised, pretending that he hadn’t stolen the glance that he did.

“Good,” Anduin groaned. “I’m certain that I reek.”

Wrathion leaned in to brush his nose across the scar on the man’s neck, taking in a long, deep breath.

“You smell like the earth.”

Anduin flinched, stifling a small laugh. A red flush shot across his skin from the tips of his ears all the way down to his chest. “My clothes are in quite a state, too.”

“I will help you clean those,” Wrathion continued, running his claws through Anduin’s blond hair. “In the meantime, I can lend you some of mine.”

With a sick jolt, Wrathion’s eyes widened as he realized that he had neglected to check on the dragon egg even once the previous day. Anduin noticed his abrupt alarm and leaned back, letting the dragon rise to his feet.

“Allow me some time,” Wrathion hesitated, failing to calculate how long it would take. “There is something I absolutely must do first. It cannot wait.”

“Of course,” Anduin nodded. “Please, Wrathion, don’t let me distract you.”

Wrathion leaned forward, taking the man’s upturned jaw in his claws and kissing him on the mouth. “I am grateful for this distraction. I won’t be long.” 

In the Rookery, Wrathion stoked the dwindling furnace fires back to a proper roar, then ran through the daily list of checks he performed on the egg to monitor the growth of the whelp within. He checked the measurements twice. Everything seemed to be more or less in order; the egg’s temperature hadn’t even dropped. It barely seemed to have noticed his extended absence. Wrathion nearly dropped his journal at the sound of heavy hooves entering the chamber.

“Good morning,” Ebyssian greeted, brows knitting together. “How is he?”

“Exhausted, but, seemingly healthy,” Wrathion replied, rubbing his finger over his eyes. “He slept soundly through the night. I must take him to bathe and refill his canteen. We have no running water. I did not think we would need running water...”

“I know,” Ebyssian interrupted, running a hand over his snout, flicking the ring piercing. “Do not worry, I will go to a market in the Blackrock Depths and fetch some suitable food for a human diet.”

“Be discrete,” Wrathion warned, his voice sharp. “I’m not sure that the Queen-Regent should know that he is here yet.”

Ebyssian grunted. “If you’re flying around with him on your back, I’m not sure how long we can keep her ignorant.”

“Yes, but we should give him some time,” Wrathion sighed and removed a copper instrument from the small chest he kept, intending to scrape off a sample from the outer shell. “While you are in the city, would you also pay a visit to Right and Left? They were due to be moved into a room at an inn near the hospital at this next stage of Right’s recovery. I must ensure that they are comfortable and have everything they need.”

“I will see to that as well,” Ebyssian promised. “What else?”

Wrathion hesitated, a million thoughts racing through his buzzing mind.

“Potions,” he said, at last. “A few months supply of potions, for pain and for sleeping. Whatever you can find, as long as the strength is appropriate for a human.”

“It will be done,” Ebyssian stepped closer, extending his hand. “I am glad for you, brother. This is good news.”

Wrathion returned the gesture, giving his brother’s paw a firm squeeze. He allowed Ebyssian to lean his antlered head in, resting their brows together.

When Wrathion returned to his chambers, Anduin had dressed in a dirty, rumpled tunic and breeches and was murmuring a healing prayer over his injured leg. He’d moved back into the nest, but hadn’t put on his prosthesis.

“Does it still hurt?” Wrathion asked, brows knitting together with concern as he watched the priest work.

“I’ve just sprained it,” Anduin said with a grimace. “I’ve been placing a great deal of strain on it for far longer than I should have. I was in too much of a hurry after Redridge.”

“Crutches,” Wrathion said, abruptly, shame rippling through him for not noticing sooner. “Do you require a pair of crutches?”

A hot flush spread across Anduin’s cheeks, the Light receding from his palms as he nervously ran them over the thighs of his pants. “I wouldn’t want you to trouble yourself. Really, I can move around just fine without them on the floor...”

There was a long pause. In the wait, Wrathion found himself clasping his hands behind his back and studying the curve of his boots, shifting his weight from one heel to the other. He felt as if the ground had begun to crack beneath them and if he took a misstep, they would fall right through.

“...but,” Anduin continued, after what felt like an eternity. “I would appreciate having them. They can make some things easier.”

“I can fetch a pair for you from the dwarves in the Depths,” Wrathion promised.

Anduin tucked his chin into his collarbone, running his fingers across the end of his thigh. After a moment, he said, quietly: “Thank you. If you’re sure it isn’t too much trouble.”

Wrathion dipped his chin and shoulders into a half-bow, feeling as though he had stepped into a role, like an actor in some kind of play. “Not at all, my dear.”

The dragon fetched a tunic and a pair of pants and small clothes from a trunk he had in the corner of the room while Anduin collected his things into his satchel. The human struggled, at first, to make the climb onto his back but it was not long before he was situated properly in front of the dragon’s shoulders, gasping with a giddy excitement as Wrathion ascended from the bedroom’s balcony. Wrathion’s hearts fluttered as he felt Anduin’s grip tighten and his human pulse quicken.

“This is incredible!” Anduin shouted above the roar of the wind, the heel of his boot digging in. “Can you go faster?”

“ **Yes, of course I can,** ” Wrathion roared. “ **But not if you continue to kick me like a common horse, Anduin Wrynn.** ”

Anduin’s laughter peeled out over the mountains and apologies fluttered from his lips as he pressed them up and down the hot, black scales on the dragon’s neck. Wrathion felt his irritation melt and he dared to increase his speed a fraction, joy swelling in his chest at the sound of Anduin’s unrestrained laughter and yells.

Even with the increase in speed, the flight to the river was long and slow. Anduin’s strength gradually faded and he fell silent, his concentration focused on staying attached to the dragon’s neck. His entire body lay flat with his head tucked behind Wrathion’s crest to shield his face from the cold wind. Wrathion landed as close to the river’s bank as he could manage, trotting closer before finally lowering himself onto his stomach so that Anduin could slide off with ease.

While Anduin floated and scrubbed himself with a bar of soap he had tucked away in his satchel, Wrathion sorted through the human’s clothes. The dragon used both the river water and a series of enchantments he had uttered countless times before to cleanse his own clothing on the road. He took note of the numerous tatters and tears, but folded each garment up as if it were a treasured piece of silk when he was through. All the while, his eyes flickered towards what he could see of Anduin’s body. The sight of him there, in the Burning Steppes, after so many months of privately longing for him, was somewhat jarring; particularly the details that rubbed against what had existed his indulgent fantasy. Anduin’s hair had grown past his shoulders and he had lost a substantial amount of weight. His bones pushed against the scarred skin, particularly around his ribs and spine, and the reduction in muscle made him wiry and lean, more reminiscent of the recovering prince Wrathion had met in Pandaria than the dwarf-tempered king he had met years later in Stormwind. When Anduin used a straight razor from his to scrape away the meager growth of dark blond stubble, even the familiarity of the clean-shaven jaw somehow still did not bring Wrathion much comfort.

Anduin soon emerged, dripping and trailing water behind him as he crawled across the bank towards where his brown wool cloak lay in the ground. He wrapped himself up in it and sat shivering as he tried to dry off, his white-blue toes curling in the gravel. Wrathion swiftly went to his side, bringing the spellcloth tunic and pants.

“Let’s get you dressed,” the dragon said, gently, running his warm hands up and down the man’s bundled arms. He took Anduin’s cold, scarred fingers between his palms and blew on them, smoke and hot air warming the skin.

“I-I’ve m-m-missed th-this,” Anduin said with a shaky smile as his fingers reddened.

The olive green silk tunic fit well enough, though it was far too thin to suitably keep Anduin’s non-draconic body heat in against the chill of Dun Morogh in late autumn. Wrathion tried to push thoughts of the places where a seam needed to be taken in or out to better suit Anduin’s broad-chested form and knelt down to take the flapping right pant leg in his hands. With a neat slice of his claws, he tore off the fabric just below the residual end of the limb.

“Wr-rathion,” Anduin protested around his chattering teeth, arms wrapped tightly around his chest. “Th-those are good pants.”

“Indeed,” Wrathion replied, summoning a needle and spellthread from a pouch at his waist. He folded the end and began to sew them together. “And their value has only increased now that they fit you better.”

His fingers worked quickly to make a seam with long stitches that he would refine later, when Anduin wasn’t standing and shivering, exposed to the wind with his damp hair hanging around his shoulders. He stood up, steam hissing from his fingers as he ran them through the darkened ends of Anduin’s wet hair.

“You should drink and refill your canteen, while we’re here,” he suggested.

Back at Blackrock Mountain, Wrathion managed a graceful landing on the balcony to his chambers. As the dragon shut the balcony doors to the cold wind, Anduin crawled right to the nest, rolling into the soft moss and curling into a fetal position with his numb, still glove-covered hands tucked beneath his armpits.

“I’m-m s-sorry…” the human’s voice was thick with exhaustion. “...I think I’d like to j-just sleep again…I’m s-so tired...”

Wrathion knelt down at the edge of the nest, laying his hand on Anduin’s shoulder. The wind from the flight had dried the man’s hair, but he still felt cold beneath the dragon’s mortal palm. “Sleep as much as you wish.”

“...I’ll have to wr-write...Aunt Jaina…” Anduin murmured around his trembling jaw. “...she’ll b-be...so worried…I have to write...everyone...”

“There will be plenty of time for letters when you’ve regained your strength,” Wrathion reasoned, running his hand over the priest’s shoulder.

Anduin’s teeth chattered as he rolled over to glance up, gray-blue eyes hopeful. “D-do you have any blankets?”

“No,” Wrathion admitted, silently adding one more item to the ever-growing list of tasks in his head. “I have more tunics. They are all somewhat thin, perhaps it would be better if you wore more than one layer.”

“It’s all right, I c-can use my cloak if I need to, and this room is so warm as it is,” Anduin grasped Wrathion’s hand, blond eyelashes once again flickering. “L-lie down with me?”

Wrathion hesitated, the nest and Anduin’s hopeful expression looked so inviting, but he shook his head, dark hair rippling over his shoulders. “I’m sorry, my dear, I must find Ebyssian. There are one or two important tasks that require my attention.”

Anduin closed his eyes and pressed his lips to the knuckles of the dragon’s long, slender hand. “Go, then. D-don’t let me keep you.” 

A rumble of pleasure rose, unbidden, in Wrathion’s chest at the warmth from the kiss. The priest’s tone then shifted to a teasing one that just managed to hide his disappointment: “I’m sure I’d only fall asleep on you in another second or two, anyways.”

Wrathion clasped Anduin’s hand and pressed the fingers until they no longer carried the chill from the autumn air. His red eyes flickered to the dark, pinched burn scar at the pale wrist, worry gnawing at his stomach.

* * *

Anduin Wrynn spent his first two days in Blackrock Mountain mostly sleeping. Wrathion, for once, was the first of them to rise in those early mornings. The dragon would wake to find the soft red ambient glow from his eyes cast over Anduin’s calm face, still deep in sleep. His blond eyelashes fluttered in the daylight that streamed in through the tall, giant windows, unwashed hair spilling over the folds of his cloak, which he used as a pillow, and trailing through the dark green moss. In sleep, Anduin would unconsciously seek Wrathion’s body heat, always rolling closer to keep his cold hands and foot close to the dragon’s warm limbs if one of them happened to shift away from the other.

Wrathion was content to spend time in those mornings lying in the nest and watching the priest doze. He attempted to memorize every new freckle and wrinkle, to acclimate to the sound of another heartbeat beside him in the nest and to attempt to massage the feelings of uncertainty that plagued him. It felt good to have Anduin’s body to hold; the human’s sweet scent brought an inexplicable comfort to him. He relished seeing Anduin’s first sleepy, unguarded smile after waking, reaching to stroke Wrathion’s chin beneath his beard. The bedroom would fill with the sound of a dragon’s rumbling purr when the priest stroked his head and back while inquiring about any unwanted dreams.

Once Anduin fell asleep again for a second morning nap, the Earth-Warder’s duties would inevitably draw him away to another nest. The black dragon egg needed to be monitored and rotated and samples of the eggshell analyzed for growth or signs of unwanted change. Wrathion found himself debating the agonizing question of whether or not he should attempt to pierce the shell with a needle to take a sample of the fluid within. Then there was more cleaning to do and floor plans to draft, both of the Lair and the Upper Spire. The ancient maze of dry water pipes alone were a labyrinth seemingly constructed from the nightmares of a corrupted dragon. Trying to track down the holy grail of the mythical water source that once fueled the flow was proving to be more and more difficult. 

With what time Wrathion had left in the day, he would resume the tedious process of organizing and cleaning Nefarian’s library, where most of the shelves were still overturned or broken from his fight with Ebyssian, interchanged with visits down to the Blackrock Depths to check in on Right’s recovery. Moira had also offered the Earth-Warder a kind of limitless library pass to each and every archive in her clan’s possession, opening up vaults of dizzying possibilities for his research. Surely, somewhere in the great fiery mountain was a page or two that held more precious secrets to the delicate art of hatching dragons. All Wrathion needed was the time with which to study.

It wasn’t long before Anduin could manage to be awake for prolonged periods of time. He used his waking hours to explore every nook and cranny of the Black Dragonflight’s new domain that he could reach. Though Wrathion had commissioned a pair of human-sized crutches from a dwarven engineer in the Blackrock Depths, Anduin frequently switched back and forth between relying on them and the prosthesis, sometimes using both together. The heavy limp in his gait betrayed some kind of trouble he had in wearing the device for prolonged periods of time, which he deflected questions about when Wrathion tried to bring it up, simply saying that he needed time to recover from the journey. Wrathion started to keep one or two of the healing potions Ebyssian had bartered for on his person at all times, just in case, and would fiddle with the small glass vial in his pocket when he found himself lost in thought.

“Are you sure that you don’t need anything?” Wrathion dared to ask, bluntly, over a dinner of charred worg legs that Ebyssian had fetched and skinned. “You only have but to ask.”

“I’m fine,” Anduin said with a smile that Wrathion found irritatingly cryptic. “I can’t thank you both enough for taking me in so suddenly and for sharing your home with me.”

Ebyssian let out a low hum from where he sat cross-legged on the floor. They took their meals out on the landing to Nefarian’s Lair, where Ebyssian usually dropped the spoils from his hunt, to watch the golden red sunset as it sank behind the mountains.

“No thanks is necessary,” the elder dragon said, gracefully, exhaling a cloud of smoke. He passed the glass pipe to Anduin, who accepted it with a grateful smile. “We are more than glad for your company. It was getting a bit dull up here, at any rate.”

“Hmph, whose conversation was dull?” Wrathion tried to tease.

One eye was distracted by the sight of Anduin, eyes closed with relief as he exhaled the bitter smoke, running his free hand across his right thigh as he quietly called the Light to soothe the mysterious ache that lurked somewhere below the surface.

* * *

Wrathion knelt at the center of the broken hall’s foyer, double-checking the dried, white painted rune for what felt like the hundredth and hopefully last time that week since he received the letter with detailed instructions for how to paint it. Satisfied that everything was still in order, the Earth-Warder rose to his feet, engraved golden bangles at his wrists clinking together. He wore a long-sleeved, intricately embroidered navy blue tunic with a hem that fell almost to his knees, accompanied by a dark golden sash. A dark half-cape embroidered with patterns of constellations and scales was fastened over his left shoulder by a braided chain secured under the opposite arm. The colors matched his black leather boots, in the usual style he prefered with the toes flat and curved. The dark red star ruby still hung at his throat on its golden chain.

“How do I look?”

Wrathion turned to find Anduin using his crutches to hop down the last step at the bottom of the set of stairs that led to the wing of the lair that housed the living quarters. The priest was dressed in a crisp white blouse with loose sleeves and a pine green vest that Wrathion had tailored in a cut traditional to Stormwind and embroidered with golden olive branches. A cream-colored silk cravat was tied around his throat, fastened with a gold pin in the shape of a wolf’s head. The right leg of his dark brown breeches was hemmed right below where his right thigh ended, with buttons closing the seam. The other foot wore one half of a new pair of sturdy leather boots with heels and gold trim at the buckles. His river-washed blond hair was tied back into the same ponytail he used to wear it in, though it now trailed down past his shoulders, bangs still framing the sides of his square face. He looked guarded, unsure, as Wrathion approached, studying him.

“Magnificent,” Wrathion decided, smoothing one side of the blouse’s collar.

A tired smile crossed Anduin’s face, but it didn’t quite reach his downcast eyes.

Wrathion tilted his head to one side. “Is something wrong?” 

“No, nothing’s wrong,” Anduin’s eyes flickered to the rune. “It’s just been so long. I’m nervous, I suppose.”

Wrathion let out a small hum, black smoke curling from his nostrils as he sighed and turned to gaze at a carving in the wall. “You certainly aren’t the only one.”

“You have nothing to worry about,” Anduin assured. “The Proudmoores aren’t particularly formal as it is, and this will be a quiet, private dinner…”

The air above the painted rune crackled with violet sparks of arcane energy. Wrathion pivoted on his toes. A mage’s portal blossomed from the small tear and a moment later Jaina Proudmoore emerged, dressed in an ankle-length navy blue skirt and a white blouse with a gray vest cut in a similar fashion to Anduin’s. Her long white hair with its single blonde streak fell in waves down her shoulders and her father’s silver anchor pendant glistened at her breast. At the sight of Anduin, her regal expression dropped, mouth tightening and blue eyes shining with unshed tears.

“Welcome to Blackrock Mountain, Lord Admiral.” Wrathion offered his hand with a sweeping bow.

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Jaina completed the greeting, dipping into her own before accepting his hand and exchanging a firm handshake. 

With formal obligations now completed, Jaina hitched up her skirt hem and rushed forward to cross the distance between herself and her nephew. She threw her arms around his shoulders as he leaned over to return a one-armed hug, the hand at her back still holding onto one crutch while he carefully balanced with the other.

“Hello, Auntie,” Anduin whispered, tears welling in his own eyes as Jaina choked back a quiet, stifled sob.

Wrathion bowed at the waist, respectfully averting his gaze. “I’ll take my leave for now, so that the two of you may have a proper reunion, if you would like a moment to talk in private..”

Jaina, her arms still wrapped around Anduin, turned with a look of gratitude over her shoulder. “Thank you, Prince Wrathion.”

The Earth-Warder wandered through the gate and into the Vault of the Shadowflame, where he followed the long path around the grand circular walkway to one of the adjoining chambers. Ebyssian had claimed the space for his own work, storing cuts of trees for carving totems. The walls and ceiling were adorned with hangings of dried tree branches and bunches of herbs. Piles of smooth black stone collected from the Burning Steppes were arranged in artful patterns on the floor amongst soil samples in pots and wicker baskets. Braziers filled with sage burned slowly, filling the space with a pleasant, spicy musk and at the center of the room was an enormous rug that had been woven on a Highmountain loom. Ebyssian smiled warmly and silently invited Wrathion to take a seat at one of the spare stumps of wood around his carving station. The totem he was working on bore the shape of a bear.

After some time had passed, to the point where they were encroaching on being unfashionably late for dinner, Wrathion wandered back into the broken hall. He froze at the gate, transfixed by the sight of Anduin sitting beside Jaina on the lowermost step to the hall, next to the empty stone fountains. The priest’s face was hidden, buried in the Lord Admiral’s shoulder, and he clung to her. His broad shoulders shook as she rubbed them with reassurance. The room was silent except for the hum of Jaina’s arcane portal and Anduin’s quiet, stifled sobs. Jaina’s blue eyes flickered upward and met Wrathion’s burning gaze for a brief moment. The dragon gave a quick, respectful bow and turned away on silent bootsteps, his hearts pounding.

“What’s wrong?” Ebyssian asked at Wrathion’s return, lowering his tools.

Wrathion shook his head. He did not trust himself to describe the tumultuous heat burning in his chest. He stood, shoulders slumped, staring at the wall as he tried to pinpoint a feeling. He felt anxiety from the Proudmoore dinner that still lay ahead. Relief that Anduin was at last confiding in _someone_. Frustration and a burning jealous anger that it was not him. Concern that he still did not yet know the extent of it. Everything canceled out, leaving Wrathion standing in the center of Ebyssian’s workshop, shoulders slumped and tense, mind buzzing.

“Nothing,” was all Wrathion said. “They simply need a little more time to...reminisce.”

More time passed, more than a moment, to where they were certainly now very late for dinner. Then, Wrathion at last heard the sound of Anduin’s voice drifting through the vault. He rushed out to find Anduin standing at the top of the grand staircase, Jaina lingering a foot or so behind him. Up close, his face was cheerful and beaming, his cheeks dry. Fresh worry and resentment curdled in Wrathion’s chest when he realized that he might not have even noticed the faint redness to Anduin’s eyes.

“Are you both ready to depart?” Jaina’s voice was frustratingly cheerful, her smile small but genuine, and Wrathion could do nothing polite but return his affirmation in kind.

The halls of Proudmoore Keep were adorned with a modest amount of harvest decorations, wreaths of dried wheat, wicker, and cranberries interspersed with gilded portraits and iron sculptures. The air smelled of autumn spices and salt. If Katherine Proudmoore was at all perturbed by the lateness of her guests, she did not show it, leisurely reclined in a grand, stiff-backed sofa in the receiving parlor with Tandred Proudmoore. They were sharing a bottle of dark red wine and a plate of sausage and cheese.

“Welcome to Kul Tiras, Earth-Warder,” she said, rising to her feet and exchanging bows. “It is an honor and a pleasure to have a dragon Aspect grace us with his presence.”

Wrathion felt his cheeks flush, but he maintained a cool smile as he inclined his head. “The pleasure is mine, Lady Proudmoore.”

Katherine did not hug Anduin, but she grasped his shoulders tightly and leaned in to murmur something in his ear that made his cheeks red and his eyes glassy again. He said something quietly in return that Wrathion tried his best not to eavesdrop on as he exchanged greetings with Tandred and followed Jaina into the dining room.

Dinner was, true to Anduin’s word, casual and quiet. Anduin became almost like a different man, lively and energetic, slipping into the conversation with his old well-practiced charm. Wrathion found his own tongue still more often than not, taking small bites of crisp fried fish and roasted squash with bacon and green onion, watching the priest as he discussed the bounty of this season’s harvest and attempted to let Tandred teach him words in the Kul Tiran accent. He seemed more relaxed and happy than Wrathion had seen him since he came to Blackrock. This thought troubled the dragon more than anything else, even as he internally derided himself for not simply feeling relief that Anduin was content.

When the courses were over and they were beginning to move back into the parlor for sweet, coffee tiramisu and brandy, Wrathion excused himself. He stepped out onto the dark balcony overlooking the harbor, the cold, salty air a strange relief on his hot skin.

A moment later, he heard the balcony doors open and close again, bringing the sounds of Anduin and Tandred’s distant laughter. Jaina joined the dragon at the edge of the balcony, offering a flask of whiskey.

“How are you doing, Black Prince?” Jaina asked as Wrathion silently accepted the gift and took a small drink.

“Quite well,” Wrathion replied. “I’ve made quite a lot of recent progress on my research--”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jaina interrupted and Wrathion started at the light touch of her hand on his elbow. She had turned to face him, her face half in shadow, half in the candlelight drifting in through the windows. “How are _you_ doing?”

Wrathion faltered, a clever quip half-forming on his tongue with the sharp taste of the honey-sweetened alcohol. After a moment, he sighed, turning his face to look back out over the dark horizon. An immense array of stars shone above the sea, so wide and vast that it felt as if he could fall upwards into them if he didn’t keep his grip on the balustrade.

“He will not talk to me,” Wrathion admitted, bitterness curdling his voice. “He is in both a great deal of physical pain and some sort of emotional turmoil, but he will not admit to either, not even if I ask.”

Jaina hesitated. “He’s been through a great deal. Even I didn’t realize the extent of it. I certainly would have taken bolder actions if I had known that the archbishop of the church was--”

Wrathion held up a hand. “Please, Lord Admiral, you do not have to disclose what he confided in you. He is keeping this information from me and I will respect his reasons for doing so, no matter what they are.”

A frown crossed Jaina’s face, creases forming between her furrowing white brows.

“He only does not wish to be a burden on you,” she said, carefully, taking her own drink from the flask. “And please, titles aren’t necessary. You’re family now, just call me Jaina.”

Wrathion blinked in surprise, the red smoke flickering from his eyes. Jaina’s cheeks turned slightly pink, but not from the cold autumn wind whipping at her face.

“I’m sorry, was I too forward?”

“No, not at all,” Wrathion shook his head. “We haven’t discussed...we have not discussed anything of that nature. I do not know if he is even truly happy to be living with me. I feel utterly unprepared for any of this, least of all for how to help him.”

“He cares for you, Wrathion,” Jaina said, her voice gentle. “I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at you. He is happy, but you both have been through a great ordeal. Perhaps if you were to confide in him of how you suffered, then he may begin to open up…”

Wrathion made a choking noise, swaying backwards as he shook his head. “How _I_ suffered? I was not the one held prisoner in his own kingdom for almost a year.”

“It does not matter,” Jaina offered the whiskey again. “You were hurt, physically and emotionally, too. I witnessed a good part of that in Dalaran. Sharing your own pain and worries may help reassure him that you are open to a conversation about his.”

Wrathion fell still, accepting another drink. He turned to look back at the warm yellow light coming from the parlor. Through the glass doors, he could see Anduin’s shape as he animatedly shuffled a deck of hearthstone cards, Tandred setting up a board with dishes of blue crystal playing pieces on the ottoman between them.

“Would you care to stay the night?” Jaina asked. “I can arrange to have the guest chambers prepared and a good warm breakfast sent up in the morning. Then, if Anduin is feeling up for it, you could even borrow the carriage and take a tour of the harbor. Perhaps a change of scenery would do the two of you some good.”

In the back of his mind, Wrathion pictured the dragon egg, patiently waiting for him in the Rookery’s nest. More laughter rang from the two men over the hearthstone board. Ripples of rich music bloomed from a phonograph horn as Katherine set a large record spinning. 

“If Anduin is willing, then, yes,” Wrathion conceded. “I would gratefully accept your generous offer.”

Jaina’s encouraging smile once again drew a dark blush to Wrathion’s cheeks and the Earth-Warder found it difficult not to return one in kind.

Upon entering the Proudmoore’s personal guest quarters, Anduin flopped down on top of the quilt-covered mattress, letting his crutches drop to the floor with a clatter. He pulled himself towards the pillows and buried his reddening face in them, groaning without restraint.

“Oh, they smell so good,” he murmured, speech slightly slurred from the affects of the wine. “I love the fabric soap that they use here.”

Wrathion’s gaze swept over the room, taking in the thick dark curtains that had been drawn over the windows for privacy and the small fire that the servants had lit for them. He wandered over to the dresser and pulled out various drawers, finding nightshirts and extra towels folded and tucked away with sticks of cinnamon. Anduin had sat up and begun to discard his clothing, throwing his boot across the room and wriggling out of his breeches.

“Would you like some assistance?” Wrathion asked with a smirk as he kept one eye on the human while meandering over to a small table, where a crystal bottle of dark amber liquor and four square glasses stood next to a small dish that held arcane-chilled whiskey stones. “As amusing as it would be to watch you roll off the edge.”

“Hush, I’m…perfectly... _fine_.” With a grunt, Anduin tugged his leg out and the pants joined his boot and crutches on the floor. His blouse and vest soon followed and with a flash of pale skin, he disappeared under the covers. A loud groan emitted from the lump in the quilt, the fabric shifting as his foot swung back and forth across the width of the lower mattress. “Ohhhhh, Aunt Jaina had them use a bed warming pan, by the _Light_ it feels so _good_...”

Wrathion ducked his chin into his collarbone, swirling the golden liquor around the bottom of his thick glass, a prick of anxiety weighing on his breast. “...is that something that you miss?”

Anduin turned his head, glassy eyes peering out from just above the covers. His brows knit with confusion. Wrathion approached the bed, still studying the whiskey as if he could divine some kind of pattern in the ripples that would make the conversation any easier.

“Do you miss these kinds of human comforts?” Wrathion repeated, his knees brushing against the edge of the bed frame. “Mattresses and warming pans...”

Anduin pushed himself up with his hands, the quilt falling from his scarred shoulders. His gaze seemed to have sobered as he tried to meet Wrathion’s eyes. “No, Wrathion. Forgive me, I didn’t mean to imply that I did.”

Wrathion’s tongue was still as he continued to swirl the whiskey around in the glass, eyes averted downward. He heard Anduin shift, and saw his hand out of the corner of his vision, patting the side of the bed with the sheets still tucked in.

“Please, come join me,” the priest said. “Let me hold you.”

Wrathion kicked back the glass, swallowing its contents in one single gulp that set his mortal throat and stomach on fire with a pleasant burn. He discarded his cape, his pants, his sash; all of it joined Anduin’s clothing on the floor. In the next moment, he was beneath the covers, letting his spine curl as Anduin cradled him from behind and pushed his hair aside so he could lay a gentle kiss on the back of his neck. 

The covers were, Wrathion had to admit, pleasantly warm, even by a dragon’s high standards. He tried to relax into the simple mortal comforts, to melt into the embrace of both Anduin’s limbs and the sheets. As the fire dimmed to embers in the hearth, Anduin’s breaths grew shallow and even, with only the occasional hitch spurned by some kind of ache. Wrathion stared at the patterns in the wallpaper, mind consumed with the countless small problems and puzzles that needed to be solved in Blackrock Mountain, claws tracing the thick burn scar below the pale hand that lay across his chest.

* * *

Night had descended over the mountain and Wrathion made his usual rounds, extinguishing candles and hanging lamps with a lazy gesture from his hand as he walked through the halls from the Rookery. The being growing within the egg had grown more restless and he felt compelled to return to the nest at both midday and the evening to keep the furnaces stoked and monitor for problems. It was still far too early for the egg to hatch, but something about the structure was beginning to change. The shell appeared to be thinning, shedding its outer layer of almost stone-like skin to reveal a softer, smoother black shell beneath. The protective spines were, alarmingly, beginning to drop off as well and each time he checked on the egg he always found one or two more sitting at the bottom of the nest like leaves shedded from a tree. Wrathion did not know what else to do with them but to collect them in a box and dutifully record each incident in his research journal.

That evening, when Wrathion returned to his bedchamber, Anduin was not there. The priest’s prosthesis lay on the floor just outside his preferred side of the nest and his crutches were missing. The dragon checked both the washroom and the balcony, finding both empty. He wandered through the living quarters, listening for sounds that might betray the priest’s location. His ears pricked at the sound of glass scraping across stone, coming from the direction of the old kitchens.

In the dusty room, Anduin slumped on the grit-covered floor, back propped up against the wall, his crutches within arm’s reach. A bottle of wine from Moira’s private cellars was open beside him, a glass in his hand, his head tipped back to turn his face toward the ceiling as if he were looking at the cobwebs there, but his eyes were closed. The room was only lit by the moonlight streaming in through the rain-spattered windows and the warm Light radiating from his palm into his leg. The old unused brick fireplace loomed across the room, its hearth large and dark enough to hide an entire dragon. A spider slept in her web made across the dry pump, above an unused sink basin and drain. Cabinets and shelves that once held rotting food lay bare, waiting to be refilled.

“This is quite an unusual place to drink alone,” Wrathion let his boots audibly scrape to draw the priest’s attention as he approached. “Would you not prefer to at least sit at the table over there?”

“This is more comfortable,” Anduin muttered, eyes sliding down to study the red-stained glass in his hand.

Wrathion crouched down beside him. “It’s rather late. Wouldn’t you rather enjoy this in our room, perhaps out on the balcony? It’s a bit cold, but we could watch the lightning from the storm as it strikes the mountains.”

“N-no,” Anduin shook his head, rubbing his face with his hand. “I’d rather sleep here. I don’t want to climb those stairs again.”

“Stairs?” Wrathion’s eye crinkled with confusion.

Anduin nodded, face contorting. “Yes, those _Light_ forsaken _stairs_. Every single time I use them I feel like I’m going to fall and crack my skull open.”

Confusion and doubt swirled in Wrathion’s chest. He let himself sit fully on the floor. Anduin’s prayer stopped, darkness descending on both of them except for the soft red glow from Wrathion’s eyes. The only sound was the rain continuing to tap lightly against the glass.

“I’m sorry,” Anduin’s voice cracked. “I’ve had a long day. Everything...everything hurts.”

Wrathion’s hearts began to beat quicker. “Why did you not tell me sooner?”

Anduin shook his head. “There’s nothing you can do, I just have to wait for it to pass. The Light helps. And your potions.”

“Well, if you’d prefer to spend the night down here, the least I can do is keep you company to distract you,” Wrathion suggested, shifting so that he was reclining on his side. “How is the wine? Did Moira at least select a good vintage?”

Anduin was silent. He turned the glass in his hand, studying the red reflections on the surface and the rim.

“Do you feel any resentment towards me?” the priest asked, his voice so quiet it almost couldn’t be heard above the rain.

Wrathion tried to keep his voice steady. “Resentment for what, my dear?”

Anduin set the glass down on the floor and reached for the thick neck of the bottle. “Everything.”

Wine poured in a thick, dark river, black in the night air.

“I didn’t protect you,” Anduin’s voice came forth, bitter and harsh, from behind the shadow cast by his long, loose greasy hair as he leaned forward. “I broke my promise to you, that you would be safe within Stormwind’s borders for as long as I reigned.”

Wrathion took a long, deep breath. He turned to gaze at the window, where the moonlight was fractured by the rivers of raindrops streaking down the glass pane. The air rushed out of him through his nostrils in one long exhale, accompanied by a cloud of black smoke.

“I do feel a great deal of anger,” Wrathion said, watching the smoke drift towards the ceiling where it became lost in the cobwebs. “But, it is not towards you, Anduin. Never towards you.”

Anduin lifted the glass, his muttering voice distorted by the shallow acoustics in the cup. “Perhaps you should.”

Wrathion flinched like he had been struck. Anger did flare upward, then, burning hot and brief, before it doused itself just as quickly as it had sparked. Something within Anduin seemed to have receded as well, his expression softening as he lowered the glass.

“There are some things I have to tell you,” he said. “Will you listen?”

Wrathion leaned into the wall, folding his arms around his knees as he watched Anduin rub his thumb across the burn scar on his wrist. “Of course I will.”

As Anduin spoke, the rain continued to beat against the glass windows. When he was through, Wrathion took a deep breath that he let out with a long, low sigh, spewing smoke into the air as he turned to stare into the gaping black maw of the dusty brick fireplace.

“There, it’s done,” Anduin croaked, sounding resigned as he ran his fingers through his hair. “I at least owed that much to you, so that every time you look at me you’ll know who you’re really looking at: not a strong ruler, but a pathetic coward who cannot even defend himself from an old man with a switch--”

“Do not say such things,” Wrathion whispered, his voice so low and harsh that it made Anduin startle.

“I’m sorry,” the priest murmured, shifting his weight to sit upright, relinquishing the wall’s support as he reached for his crutches. “I’ve had enough. I just want to sleep. I’ll go upstairs.”

Wrathion rose to his feet, silently offering his palm. After a moment, Anduin grasped it and with a strangled grunt used the support to pull himself up. Wrathion stood behind the priest and kept a sharp eye out as they slowly made their way up the steep, spiraling staircase that led into the part of the living quarters where the bed chambers were. Anduin managed to get himself into the nest and lay down, clutching his bundled-up cloak to his chest as he murmured with relief. The Light came to his palms and seeped into his chest. Wrathion crouched by his side with a hand warming his shoulder. The dragon’s sleepless eyes cast a soft red glow across the moss.

When Anduin’s breath was even and still, the tense lines in his face loose with unconsciousness, Wrathion stood up and slipped out onto the balcony. He shifted and flew towards the southern mountain range, rain hissing off his searing scales that burned as hot as the boulders sitting near the lava flows. His eyes were trained on the black sea of forest and the distant white peak of the Cathedral of the Holy Light. At the last moment he turned, throwing open his jaws and spitting a long stream of fire across the empty rock path, leaving charred, smoking ash in its wake. He spat and roared until he had exhausted himself, then swerved to make a rough landing on the side of a ledge.

Wrathion stood with one hand pressed to the reassuring roughness of the solid rock wall, letting the rain slowly drench his mortal clothes and skin as he openly wept.

* * *

Beams of strong, white daylight streamed in through the damp windows of Nefarian’s library. Wrathion was in the process of sorting through a stack of books when he heard the sound of Anduin’s uneven footsteps making their way slowly across the wooden floor. He turned the corner and realized it was the first time he had seen Anduin in this particular room. Seeing him there was surreal and unnerving, staring with curiosity at the fallen bookshelves and heaps of stacked, disorderly books. He wore a loose, simple white tunic, greasy hair tied back in a loose ponytail with a leather cord. His gray-blue eyes were clouded red and lined with dark bags.

“How are you feeling today?” Wrathion asked, eyes shifting down to Anduin’s right leg, which stood more or less steady beneath him.

Anduin nodded to avoid making eye contact, hands clasped behind his back. “Much better, thank you. I’ve decided to be a little more cautious with my explorations today.”

A smirk twitched beneath Wrathion’s trimmed beard. “Caution? I didn’t realize that you even knew that word, much less how to exercise it.”

This drew a real, genuine laugh.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Anduin began as he continued his slow approach, eyes still cast towards the floor.

“Of course,” Wrathion gestured to the chair, a silent offer which the human declined with a small shake of his head and a gesture with his flat palm.

“I’ve been exchanging letters with Velen,” Anduin explained. “He’s invited me to stay at the Exodar for a short while.”

The bottom of Wrathion’s mortal stomach plummeted towards the floor. He found himself unable to smooth the look of shock from it, for the moment grateful that Anduin seemed to still be preoccupied with the toes of his own boots.

“He’s offered to help me with my physical recovery and to study amongst the draenei priests so that I can strengthen my connection to the Light. It’s been so long since I’ve prayed at their crystal shrines or the Pool of Lights and...I find myself thinking of them when it’s difficult to push back unwanted memories of the Cathedral. I think it would do me a great deal of good to spend some time there. May I do so?”

Anduin’s eyes, at last, flickered upward.

“You are not a prisoner.” Wrathion’s voice was quiet. “This is your home, Anduin Wrynn. You may come and go as you please.”

Anduin’s brow relaxed, relief washing over him and he took a breath, releasing his hands and letting them fall by his sides.

“Would you come with me?” the priest asked, face brightening with hope. “I’d show you the Exodar and introduce you to Velen. I could teach you about the way the draenei worship the--”

“No.”

Anduin closed his mouth. Wrathion folded his arms across his chest, turning to study the distant brick wall. He cleared his throat.

“I cannot leave my work,” the dragon said. “Not at this crucial time, and…”

Anduin tucked his hands into his pockets, shifting his weight, waiting. Wrathion paced, then took a deep breath.

“Given everything that’s happened, I have less interest in your religion now than ever and utterly no desire to change that. There are a great many things I would do for you. I would move heaven and earth if it would finally bring you a fraction of some relief, my dear. But, not this. I cannot.”

Anduin’s face flushed. When he looked up again, Wrathion returned his gaze with no malice.

“Even still, you have my blessing to go to your Prophet and practice as you wish. I will give you that a thousand times over, if that is something you seek from me.”

Anduin’s shoulders slumped and he ran a hand over his mouth, tears rising to his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was hushed, as if he were speaking in the Cathedral during mass.

“Thank you, Wrathion.”

The dragon kept his arms folded tight across his chest, black claws digging into his arms. Anduin had turned away to stare at a bookshelf, blinking and rubbing his eyes.

“How will you make the journey to the Exodar?” Wrathion offered, gently.

Anduin’s head jerked up. He looked slightly taken back and dazed, as if he hadn’t dared to think this far ahead. “Oh...I suppose I will ride east and take a ship from Menethil Harbor to Azuremyst Isle. Or if Velen can spare the resources and you don’t mind the risk of opening a second gateway to Aunt Jaina’s grounding rune in the Broken Hall, I could arrange for a portal.”

“A temporary portal to the Exodar will be no trouble from our end,” Wrathion’s voice had become light, emotionless, as if he were merely conducting an ordinary business transaction. “If you would prefer, I can ask one or two of my agents to accompany you. I mean no offense to the draenei, I’m certain their guards are excellent, but considering who you were and are, it may be prudent to have other eyes watching out for you.”

Anduin laughed, this time shorter and with none of the mirth that was present before. “I can’t argue with your logic, Black Prince, although I’m certain I’ve never been at a lower risk of a kidnapping.”

“Do not underestimate yourself. You still have great value. Particularly to me.”

Wrathion tried to keep his calm, affectionate expression from wavering under Anduin’s turn at struggling to conceal the shock from his expression.

“I’ll write to Velen, then, and give him the news,” the priest said, after a moment.

Wrathion nodded. “You may borrow as much parchment and ink as you need from my desk.”

“Thank you,” Anduin hesitated, swaying on the ball of his foot as if he wanted to move closer, but he didn’t. “I’ll...go take care of that right now.”

With a small bow, Anduin turned around and limped back towards the door at the front of the library which led to Nefarian’s old study. Wrathion was left amongst the piles of books, staring out the window at the white clouds moving across the mountains in the blue autumn sky.

* * *

The portal to the Exodar crackled with arcane light as it unfurled, bringing with it a distorted vision of the great dormant spaceship at rest amongst green hills and the scent of Azuremyst’s gentle sea breeze and sweet flowers. Anduin stood with his traveling cloak adorning his shoulders, dressed in loose cream-colored tunic, simple brown breeches, and plain leather boots that Wrathion had fashioned, leaning for support on his wooden staff. His draenei spellbook hung from a leather belt buckled around his waist. A Blacktalon sin’dorei with dark skin and long, black hair tied into thick braids artfully arranged with golden pins stood by his side, carrying his own traveling pack and Anduin’s crutches. Tynnair was one of Wrathioin’s most senior and trusted agents, who knew Azuremyst Isle well from time spent long ago when he had once hunted the draenei from the shadows there.

“I should only be gone a month or so.” Anduin turned his back to the portal to face where Wrathion stood next to the dry dragon’s head fountain at the base of the stairs with his hands tucked into the pockets of his loose silk pants.

Wrathion bowed his head. “Of course. You should stay as long as you need...as long as you’d like to.”

Anduin’s cheeks darkened. Words seemed to falter on his tongue. He took a step closer, then another, until the toes of their boots were almost touching, the well-worn end of the wooden staff resting beside them.

“Thank you for seeing me off,” Anduin said, quietly. “I am grateful that you can now, without the frustration of missing one last kiss.”

As Wrathion’s gaze widened in surprise, Anduin leaned in to press his lips to the dragon’s warm mouth. Wrathion succumbed to the gesture, the red light over their faces darkening as he let his eyelids close. He swept his hand up the human’s back beneath his cloak, claws brushing over the soft spellcloth before pulling him in for an embrace, enjoying the weight of Anduin leaning against him. 

The blush had reached the human’s ears by the time he stepped away, giving Wrathion a small, sad smile before turning towards the portal. Wrathion exchanged a final nod with Tynnair and the two of them disappeared with a vibrant hum of arcane energy. After a moment, the portal faded with one final crackle, leaving the Broken Hall dark and silent. The air still smelled faintly of flowers.

With a polite cough and a shuffle of hooves, Ebyssian made his way down the great stone steps to where Wrathion lingered, still staring at the painted rune on the floor. The younger dragon turned to look at him, an unguarded expression of disappointment on his face.

“Come.” Ebyssian leaned in to carefully touch his forehead against his brother’s. “There are many hours left in this beautiful day. Let us go hunting.”

* * *

The morning after Anduin’s departure, a great racket drew Wrathion from his chambers to the landing outside the entrance to Nefarian’s Lair. He was surprised to find four white and brown gryphons squawking and chittering in the area next to the broken throne, littering the floor with feathers. They were accompanied by Left, a bandaged Right, and three other members of Blacktalon. The dark-haired, pale blood elf twins Solisril and Lunaril were present, collecting the gryphons’ reins while Arlios, a tall blood elf with richly tanned skin, a wild mane of dark red hair and a heavy scar across one milky white eye, unburdened three generously sized wooden casks from their flanks.

“Good morning, sir,” Arlios called, his husky voice laden with one of the rougher iterations of the sin’dorei’s accent. “Do you happen to have any stables for flying mounts?”

“Stables?” Wrathion repeated, still somewhat taken aback by the sight. His red eyes remained fixed on Left, who was helping Right find her unsteady feet on the cracked mosaic tiles. “I do not. No, not at present.”

“No matter, we’ll make do.” With a few clicks of his tongue and a string of crooning encouragements, Arlios began to guide the gryphons over to a corner of the landing and tie their leads to the columns there.

“What is the meaning of this?” Wrathion asked.

“We thought we would lend a hand with helping Right settle in,” Lunaril explained, hoisting up one end of a cask.

“And celebrate her swift recovery,” Solisril finished, from the other end.

“Which, of course, requires plenty of Dark Iron ale and fresh pretzels,” Arlios called from the other end of the landing where he had begun to feed the gryphons bars of grain and nuts from his satchel.

Right did not, in fact, seem completely recovered as she limped towards the Lair’s entrance. Her arm was still bound in a cast, albeit a much smaller one than what had been around her arm the last time Wrathion had seen it, and it was cradled in a sling that wrapped around one shoulder. But most of the bruises had faded from her light brown skin and the stitches had been removed from the heavy gashes in her face. A few new scars accompanied the two old ones that ran across her high cheeks.

“It’s good to see you back on your feet again,” Wrathion said, taking the human’s shoulders in his hands.

“It’s good to be back, Your Highness,” Right replied, her wide smirk tugging at the age lines in her face. She reached up and roughly grasped the side of his jaw, running her thumb across the top of his scale-covered cheek and gently pulling down the bags beneath his kohl-lined eyes. “I see you’ve been sleeping as well as ever."

Wrathion led the small parade of his agents into the kitchen to unload the casks and the sacks of food from the Blackrock Depths market, introducing Ebyssian along the way. The older dragon had emerged from his workshop to investigate the unfamiliar sound of roguish boots stomping through the echoing halls. When the first cask was set down, it brought up a cloud of dust. Left, Right, and the blood elves stood still for a moment, taking in the sight of the cobweb-covered hearth and the dust-covered table and counters. Right strode over to the far side of the room and began unlatching and pushing open the windows with her one available arm, letting fresh air sweep in. Left quickly trailed after her to assist and soon the scent of the autumn mountain breeze replaced the oppressive stench of spicy dust and rotting crumbs in the kitchen.

“We’re going to need buckets,” Right announced, turning around to run a finger over the ash-covered brick around the fireplace. “And brooms. Several brooms and dustpans, some sacks for carting the dust and dirt outside. And, of course, soap, we’ll need _plenty_ of--”

A high-pitched squeal ricocheted through the room. Solisril hastily turned the knob back on the water pipe by the deep sink basin.

“There is no running water,” Wrathion explained.

“Then we should take care of that first,” Right said, wiping her finger on the seat of her leather pants and placing her hand on her hip. She looked at Left who gave her a small, shy smile and nodded, her long black ponytail flicking across her back.

“Build some stables, fix the water, clean the kitchen,” Arlios ticked off the items on his fingers while Solisril and Lunaril slipped away to bring down a second keg. “Is there anything else that you need done, sir?”

Wrathion hesitated. He felt strangely out of his element, as if he were settling back into a role he had not fully occupied in quite some time. The faces of his Blacktalon agents looked back at him, expectantly, awaiting further orders.

“Yes,” the Earth-Warder said. “There is a great deal more that I would like to do.”

* * *

“Anything?” a faint voice called up through the hole in the wall near the dragon-sized bath in Wrathion’s washroom. The hole ran through layers and layers of hot mountain rock in the wall and through it a copper pipe snaked down into the darkness. They had exposed as much of it as they could by removing the iron panels that had been drilled over the space. Wrathion hovered, observing, tapping his claws against his upper arms.

“No!” Right shouted back, twisting and turning the faucet knob with her unbroken hand from where she sat at the edge of the bath. “Still nothing!”

“Titans _damn_ it all!” The sound of a wrench hitting solid rock shot up the hole. “We’re so _close_ , why is _this_ of all things, such a pain in the _diel fin'al?_ ”

Right closed her eyes and massaged her temple, muttering. “Why isn’t it working?”

"I've unlocked puzzle boxes that are less complex," Left smiled as she leaned over, resting her chin on Right’s uninjured shoulder as she observed her work. “Orcs are sensible and spend most of our time on the ground. We don’t bother with ridiculous things like pumping water all the way up a mountain--”

“Just try another one!” Right yelled, cupping her unbroken hand around her mouth.

“There isn’t another one, that was the last.”

“ _What?_ How can that be? I saw twelve knobs down there!”

“No, no,” a second voice, with a very different accent and formality than the first, echoed faintly up the tunnel. “There are many more over here that seem to be connected, one moment, please, let me think…I believe we can sort these into orderly permutations and rank them according to likeliness...”

Wrathion ran his fingers across his beard, tugging at the tip so that it pulled lightly at the skin on his chin. A sound from the doorway drew his attention. It was Ebyssian, carrying a small, crisp white envelope in his large hand.

“There is a letter for you,” the elder dragon said. “The Dark Iron architect brought it from where it was delivered to the Blackrock Depths. He’s taking a look at the stairs right now.”

With the letter in Wrathion’s possession, Ebyssian ventured over to stand by Right’s side as he took stock of what was going on. Wrathion’s eyes widened as he recognized the impeccable handwriting on the envelope. He rushed through the bedroom and out onto the balcony, breaking the unfamiliar purple wax seal with a claw. The wind whipped at his hair and ruffled the corners of the parchment as he unfolded the pieces and began to read in the warm sunlight.

_  
Wrathion,_

_I hope that this letter finds its way to you and when it does, that it finds you well. I realize that it’s only been a few days since my departure, but even the small amount of time that I’ve spent amongst the draenei so far has brought so much joy and lightness to my soul. I wanted to share some of my happiness with you._

_I’ve settled into my quarters in the Exodar. While not nearly as lavish as your mountain bedchamber and certainly far inferior in its views, it does have some small comforts. There is nothing quite as soft or supportive as the pillows that fill a draenei bed, not even the ones in Pandaria. I’m sharing a room with one of the acolytes who is studying to be a priest at the temple and though his conversation and wit do not hold a candle to yours, he has many interesting stories about his path to priesthood and his family’s fish farm off the coast of Bloodmyst Isle. The baths here are phenomenal. As I sit here, writing, I can still feel the lingering warmth of it easing the pain in my bones from the heavy mists. I expect that the bath salts should help with the chaffed skin on my limb. I’ll try to bring a sample home so that you can examine the mineral composition, which I think you’d find ‘fascinating.’_

_Tomorrow I will attend my first service at the Pools of Light as a guest acolyte. I fear that I am so out of practice that I will spoil the sanctity of the event in some way, but Velen and the head priest have reassured me that all will be well. The meals I share with the other priests here are delicious and plentiful. I feel so lucky to be able to break fresh bread over hours of friendly conversation about the Light and draenei scripture. You’ll most likely laugh at me for admitting this, but I am finding myself a bit shy so far. I’ve been content to merely sit and listen and eat. I’m not sure if I’m ready to talk with them about the Light quite yet. I still feel as if there is a poison within me that would be carried by my words and taint those around me who had the misfortune to hear them, but I am faithful that contemplation and prayer here will be an antidote._

_I hope that you are making progress with your studies in Blackrock Mountain and that all your other endeavors are going smoothly. If you have time for it, I would love to hear more about what you are working on, if you feel those secrets are safe to disclose in a letter. If not, then please allow me the indulgence of continuing to write to you. I think of you often. I look forward to the day when I can hold you in my arms once again and tease you relentlessly in person about how hard you work, though I suppose there is nothing stopping me from at least teasing you now with ink and parchment: please at least try to make sure that you are getting enough rest, if for nothing else so that you don’t accidentally doze off and fall out of the sky while out hunting._

_Yours dearly,_

_Anduin Llane Wrynn  
_

Wrathion stood, reading and re-reading the words, until he heard a shout and several bangs from the washroom. He rushed back to find Kalecgos now squatting beside Right, the blue dragon’s pale face smudged with dirt and grease, the shirt sleeves of his soot-dusted tunic rolled up above his rune-tattooed elbows. Dirty red-brown water was spitting violently from the end of the pipe. After a few moments, it grew clearer and calmer, until a fresh, steady stream was gushing out the end.

Right let out a loud _whoop_ as Ebyssian barked a single, short laugh in triumph. From below, Arlios’ cheers and what sounded like a wrench banging on the pipes filtered up from the hole in the wall.

“There, simply a matter of mathematical perturbations and trial and error,” Kalecgos declared, brushing his dirty palms against each other as he turned to Wrathion. “We ought to analyze a small sample of that, just to make sure it’s suitable for humans, but turning on the water to the kitchens should be a simple matter now.”

Wrathion folded the letter and tucked it into his breast pocket, laying his hand flat across it. “Kalecgos, how vast is the blue dragonflight’s knowledge of gardening?”

* * *

Nefarian’s study was more or less back in order. Left had organized the cleanup and repairs of the bookshelves and the old titles once again were off the floor, this time more organized under Wrathion’s system. The study’s walls were now filled with quiet music from the phonograph Moira had sent as a gift. She had lent a sampling of records from her personal collection and it was a comfort to have the sounds playing in the background while working on plans to renovate the greenhouse and use earth magic to make further adjustments to the stairs in the living quarters. A wicker basket filled with cloth scraps sat on the floor beside the desk. An unfinished quilt was folded on top beneath a small tomato-shaped pincushion. Like Ebyssian, Wrathion had begun his own collection of precious gemstones and minerals collected from his exploration of the Burning Steppes and they sat in small wooden boxes on the tables and windowsills. Spheres of glass dangled from the ceiling which held little gardens of small ferns and moss, also rescued from the rocky paths. Brass oil lamps and thick candles kept the space well-illuminated even through the long winter nights, which began earlier and earlier in the afternoon.

One cold night, as mounds of moonlit snow piled higher and higher against the dark glass outside on the window sills, Wrathion heard the sound of uneven footsteps approach the study door. He tried to push down the building sense of anticipation and remained seated at his desk, eyes trained on a single line in the diagram on the page of his book. A familiar human scent reached his nose, tinged slightly by strange balsamic-lemon incense and arcane portal residue. When Wrathion looked up, he saw Anduin, dressed in his traveling cloak and carrying his simple wooden staff, his gait far less staggered than it had been before he’d left. There were a few more freckles and his face was soft and bright, as if he had somehow grown a bit younger during his time away. The wide smile on his face was infectious, and Wrathion felt his own mouth twitch under its direct glow.

The Earth-Warder leaned back into his chair, utterly quiet as he watched the human make his way to the desk. Before he could think of something clever to say, Anduin had left his staff to lean against the side and made his way around to take the dragon’s jaw in both gloved hands and tilt his head back to kiss him.

“Welcome home, my dear,” Wrathion murmured.

“It’s good to be home,” Anduin replied, unfastening the gold lion’s head clasp at his neck and letting his cloak pool to the floor. He sat back on top of the corner of the desk and took Wrathion’s hand in his, squeezing it as he ran his thumb across the dragon’s mortal knuckles. “And it’s so good to see you.”

“You look well,” Wrathion replied, his cheeks darkening.

“Thank you,” Anduin tucked a loose strand of hair behind his ear. “I’ve...oh.”

Anduin’s hand swept down, picking up the bookmark that lay waiting on the desk. It was enchanted to preserve the pressed white rose petals that decorated the thick strip of paper. The petals were full and as fresh as they had been on their stem, but slightly bruised, as if they had been crumpled before lain flat and laminated. 

“This is lovely,” he murmured, turning the bookmark over in his hand. “Were these grown in Stormwind?”

Wrathion’s blush deepend as he watched, his gaze growing distant from the memory. “Yes, they were. Kalecgos helped me make that while I was in Dalaran.”

Anduin smiled, running his thumb across the laminated surface. “I’ve been doing a great deal of praying and thinking…”

“Oh? Is that what the draenei do in their temples?” Wrathion asked, a small smirk crossing his mouth. “I thought they simply shared absinthe and made love.”

Anduin took his turn blushing and set the bookmark back down on the desk so that he could run his fingers again over the shell of his now very red ear. “Some do. I did not. I wanted to offer to help you with your work. Your...research.”

Wrathion turned his hand over, so that his fingers could grasp the priest’s in kind. “Are you sure that you feel up to doing so?”

“Yes,” Anduin nodded, studying the lines in Wrathion’s hand. “It’s still unclear to me where my service to the Light will go from here, but Velen and I will stay in touch through letters. I’ve also been longing to speak with Baine about the work that his people do.”

Anduin took a deep breath, looking up so that his gray-blue eyes locked with Wrathion’s red ones.

“But, above all else, I want to stay by your side. I will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you as you guard your dragonflight and give protection to Azeroth. I will do my best to warm your nest while we sleep. I will use the Light to soothe your wounds and banish the whispers of the Old Gods from your mind.” Anduin tipped his chin forward, a look of guarded uncertainty crossing his face. “If that is what you truly want.”

Wrathion’s breath caught in his chest. He almost feared to say anything, as if it would suddenly become too much and shatter the illusion of utter peace and certainty. “Yes, Anduin Wrynn. That is what I want.”

The priest slid his hand into his pocket and took out a small chain strung through two silver rings. One was a simple band, the other held a single, small diamond stone that caught the flickering candlelight.

“These were my mother’s,” Anduin said, his voice quiet. “I’d like you to have them.”

Wrathion turned over his hand and Anduin let the chain slowly drop. The silver rings felt small and cool in his palm, reflecting the soft red light from his gaze. The Earth-Warder undid the delicate clasp with his claws and looped the chain around his neck. At the same time, he opened the clasp of the gold chain that held the star ruby at his throat. He turned the pendant over in his claws, studying the reflections over the jeweled surface of the imperfect stone while he took in the small weight of the cool rings sitting over his chest.

“You would be my consort?” Wrathion asked, raising a brow.

A small smirk crossed Anduin’s lips. “Am I not that already?”

“Formally,” Wrathion explained, returning the smirk. “There are rituals for this sort of thing, but I haven’t taken the time to learn what most of them are.”

From where he sat at the edge of the desk, Anduin leaned forward so that his neck was in the curve of the gold chain, raising both of his dark brows expectantly. Wrathion’s smirk widened and his voice trailed off. He brought his claws behind the man’s neck, under the trail of the blond ponytail, and fastened the clasp. The star ruby dropped to settle in the neck of Anduin’s tunic, over an old dark scar that crossed his chest just below his throat.

“There,” Wrathion’s voice betrayed a slight nervousness as he used his long black claws to untwist the chain and adjust a strand of Anduin’s soft, fair bangs so that it framed his jaw. “Well, I suppose that’s settled, then, now I just have to bite you someplace visible in front of an enthusiastic crowd of my...”

Anduin let his weight rest fully on top of his heels and he stood up, slipping one wide hand around the back of Wrathion’s head, securing his other arm around the dragon’s waist. The consort used the leverage to press their hips together as he pulled the Aspect in for a long, deep kiss.

* * *

Stormwind City was coated in a generous blanket of white snow that crunched underfoot as Anduin limped through the streets, shoulders slumped and head hidden in the hood of a thick wool cloak. He leaned on a cane as he walked, the chill seeping through and bringing an ache to his leg that he would not be able to banish until he was back in Blackrock Mountain sitting in a hot bath. Beside him, Wrathion’s boots left hissing, melted footprints in the roads. No one seemed to be paying much attention, though. 

Stormwind hadn’t changed as much as he thought it would. The biggest difference that Anduin noticed was that there were no longer any homeless on the streets nor were there fancy carriages blocking the slush-ladened roads, all of which were now healthily patched. The old Trade District had the doors to the bank boarded up and the square was bustling with happy people preparing to enjoy a warm lunch. Branches of evergreens formed wreaths with holly berries on shop doors and strings of gnomish engineered lights cast colorful patterns across the white snowbanks.

Tess Greymane’ brown hair hung in long, swinging waves down her back, adorned with a crown of snowflakes, as she led the way across the canals, exchanging cheerful greetings with anyone who happened to recognize her. The decorations darkened somewhat as they approached the outskirts of the Stockades. The two women who guarded the entrance gave Tess respectful nods from behind their red bandanas.

“Here we are,” Tess said, her voice laden with false cheer as she turned to face Anduin. “Are you certain that you’d like to do this?”

“Yes,” Anduin replied, avoiding the eyes of the guards.

Anduin touched Wrathion’s elbow and tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it. The furrow between the dragon’s brows only deepened.

“I’m not sure how long this will take,” Anduin said. “Please, try not to worry.”

“I cannot promise that,” Wrathion sighed. “But, I will do my best to comfort myself with the knowledge that you will at least have a capable escort.”

Tess’s brows shot up towards her wispy hairline, but the comment drew a genuine smile. She turned to the two women and said: “We’re here to see my father.”

They did not have to walk far into the depths of the old prison to find him. All of the cells were empty, except for one at the end of the first row on the top-most floor. Tess stood back, shaking her head as she gestured to the bars.

Anduin lowered his hood as he approached, letting his mussed blond hair spill out over his shoulders, guarding his neck from the chill. The cell’s occupant rose to his feet and slowly approached, laden by the heavy iron shackles around his wrists and ankles, attached by a thick chain to a collar around his neck. He rested his hands on the bars, peering out from the shadows with red-rimmed blue eyes.

“Hello, Genn,” Anduin said, quietly.

The former King of Gilneas grunted as he looked the young priest up and down. His gaze settled on the red stone that glowed with a strange warmth at his throat.

“You truly were serious about him, then,” Genn’s voice held no hint that he spoke an actual question. “Weren’t you.”

“I was,” Anduin replied. “And I am.”

Genn laughed, a brief, rough sound. The chain hanging from his neck rattled as he shook his head. His gray beard was only slightly overgrown considering the amount of time he had likely been there, as if someone had been helping him to keep it trimmed.

“Well, you have my congratulations,” Genn said, bitterly. “I did not think you actually possessed the strength or the ruthlessness to destroy your own kingdom so that you could be with him. Your father would be impressed.”

Anduin’s gaze did not waver. “He might have been.”

The priest continued to stare for a long time, until Genn’s eyes at last flickered away, the older man’s nostrils flaring and mouth turning downward with disgust.

“Your daughter has told me that you refuse to negotiate,” Anduin said.

Genn coughed. His voice was hoarse, betraying the presence of a significant cold or flu.

“Indeed,” he growled. “I am not to be retrained and resettled like a common _pet_. I will settle for nothing less than my execution.”

“That’s not how Stormwind handles these things anymore,” Anduin explained. “Though I’m sure there are still plenty who would gladly take off your head if they were left alone with you.”

“Then Tess will just have to live the rest of her life with the knowledge that she left her father to rot.”

Genn began to cough. It wracked his body, which now looked frail beneath the rumpled tunic he wore, the fine embroidery frayed, the pearl buttons dulled.

“She is willing to let you return to Gilneas,” Anduin said. “You could live amongst other Gilneans who have chosen to return to rebuild the city.”

“I’m sure that’s what she says in the daylight in front of those low-class peasant revolutionaries,” Genn’s eyes darkened. “But what about the nights when my curse is boiling the blood in her veins?”

Anduin turned his head to glance at Tess. She was leaning against the cold stone wall, twirling her silver dagger between her fingers. She shook her head and gave a casual shrug of her shoulders, but Anduin saw that her grip on the hilt was unsteady.

“A hand of forgiveness is being offered to you,” Anduin said. “My advice is that you reach out and take it.”

“And what about you, now,” Genn’s eyes flickered again in the darkness, catching the glint of the oil lamp light. “Have you forgiven me, Anduin?”

Anduin tightened his grip on his cane. He thought for a long moment.

“I have not,” the priest said, quietly. “After today, I think I would prefer to never speak with you again. Perhaps, in time, after the pain has faded, after both my and the Earth-Warder’s wounds have finished scarring over, I may be able to. But, no. Not now.”

Genn chuckled. Despite the hardness, there was an unbearable sadness in his eyes that made Anduin’s heart ache for the man who had once comforted him by his father’s ashes on the fel-scarred black sand of the Broken Shore. “You understand my reluctance, then.”

“Of course,” Anduin said. “I know how difficult this is for you.”

Genn fell silent. He coughed again, turning his face and clutching the bars as if they were the only thing keeping him standing. Anduin’s free hand slid from beneath the folds of his cloak, turning over to offer his palm.

“I can at least give you a small blessing,” Anduin said. “I do not need to offer you forgiveness for that.”

The older man hesitated, glaring as if he were searching for some sign of treachery. His face softened and he reached through the bars as far as he could to brush his fingers with the priest’s. Anduin slid his closer, until their palms were clasped. He began to say a simple prayer, and with it, channeled the Light’s warmth from his hand into Genn’s. The cell block illuminated with the radiant golden glow. Genn let out a long sigh as the energy flowed through him. When it was done, the older man’s eyes widened in surprise as he reached up towards his throat, the chain keeping his hands from rising beyond the height of his mid-chest.

“You healed me,” he stated, flatly, the hoarse cough gone.

“Yes,” Anduin admitted “May the Light be with you, Genn. I hope that you can somehow find peace within these walls.”

Genn had turned to the side, but he glanced back to take one final look at the former king. “Light be with you as well, Anduin. Though, I cannot say that it ever hasn't.”

Tess said nothing until they had escaped the Stockade walls again. Anduin almost forgot to tug the hood back over his blond hair before the cold air blasted his cheeks pink. It chased the horribly familiar smell of mildew and suffering that he remembered too well.

“Was that what you had hoped for?” Tess asked.

“I suppose I didn’t dare hope for anything,” Anduin admitted. “And so I was not disappointed.”

His heart warmed at the sight of Wrathion, hovering anxiously by a dark green tree decorated with white fairy lights. The dragon seemed to be in the middle of negotiating with a group of children who were crowded around him, fascinated by the melted snow around his curl-toed boots. The adult who seemed to be chaperoning the group of children turned around. Matron Nightingale's eyes lit up with recognition and she waved frantically, her lower lip quivering with the threat of tears. She wore a bright red bandana around her neck, just peeking out from the front clasp of her billowing cloak.

“Oh dear,” Tess struggled to contain her smile. “King Wrynn, I’m afraid we’ve both been spotted by a vicious anti-monarch revolutionary.”

“I’m afraid so, Princess Greymane,” Anduin smiled without restraint as he returned the wave, turning his back to the cold ocean wind. “I suppose we have no choice but to surrender ourselves over to her.”

* * *

The green and gold rays of the aurora shone in Dragonblight’s clear winter sky through a row of wide, open stone windows, the crisp snowy chill filling the space within. Flecks of white snowflakes drifted past, collecting on the deep windowsills. The small room at the top of Wyrmrest Temple held a blazing fire in a white stone fire pit at the center. Sculptures of various dragons carved from stone and minerals collected from all across Azeroth decorated the periphery. Narrow, black velvet banners hung in the spaces between the windows, each embroidered with the red mountain-shaped crest of the Black Dragonflight. Garlands of pine branches glittering with gold enchanted dust adorned the windowsills.

Next to the firepit, in front of a sofa piled with black cushions, Wrathion stood dressed in a draconic-styled red tunic and jacket, the hem of which trailed to his ankles. Underneath was a dark black sash tied across his hips, the tasseled ends trailing just below his knees. He had traded his boots for slippers, the toes curled upward to a point in his preferred style. Golden bangles and chains decorated his arms and neck, though at the center of his chest hung two silver, human-styled rings on a thin tarnished chain.

Anduin’s cheeks were still red from the flight up the tower from the guest quarters where they were staying in the lower part of Wyrmrest Temple. His thick cotton tunic, plain and cut in a simple human style, but the loose sleeves and the neck were decorated with elaborate embroidery that matched the design on Wrathion’s long jacket. Over, he wore a leather vest with iridescent black dragon scales sewn to make a protective armor. His soft blond hair hung loose around his shoulders and the dark red star-ruby hung from its gold chain in the part at the front of his tunic, the only piece of jewelry on his person. The draenei spellbook hung in its usual place by his hip, from the end of a wide leather belt.

Anduin’s white fingers shook as he finished adjusting the gold braid that fastened the front of the loose fabric to hang open without falling completely off the dragon’s shoulders.

“Are you all right, my dear?” Wrathion gathered Anduin’s cold hands between his, lifting them to his mouth. He gently blew on them until the color returned.

“Yes, thank you,” the priest said with a sheepish smile. “I suppose this is what I deserve for not taking my gloves with me.”

Anduin turned and picked up a mithril diadem from its resting place on a velvet pillow topped stand. Wrathion sank to both knees and kept his chin level, allowing the priest to set the crown down in exactly the right place with his well-practiced hands. The dragon rose to his feet, face tense with anxiety from the new weight that rested above his brow.

“How do I look?” Wrathion asked.

A smirk crossed Anduin’s face as he squinted and took a moment to study the dragon. He reached to tuck a strand of dark brown hair back into place.

“Magnificient,” the priest declared, quietly.

The surprised smile that flickered across Wrathion’s face drew more warmth to Anduin’s cheeks. With Anduin offering his arm in escort, the pair took their places behind a set of double doors at the far end of the room, listening to the booming speech of a rough draconic voice travel through the wood.

“Don’t tell me _you’re_ nervous?” Anduin teased. “I can’t even understand a word of what anyone is saying.”

“You’ll learn soon enough,” Wrathion muttered. “And no, I am not _nervous_. Ridiculous.”

Anduin let his arm drop and he reached over to swiftly take Wrathion’s hand instead. He brought the back of it to his mouth and laid a cold kiss upon the dark brown skin. “If you say so, oh great and brilliant Aspect.”

Wrathion brushed his claws beneath Anduin’s chin, his gaze warm with fondness even as he shakily smiled. After another moment, the doors opened, two wyrmkin servants dressed in black silks with gold embroidery pulling at the great brass handles. Wrathion took a deep breath, raised his chin and pressed his shoulders back, letting the fabric of his long cape flow freely behind him. Anduin was already prepared, a diplomatic smile perched on his lips, even as internally his heart began to pound at the sight of the temple’s most sacred shrine, dressed in festive splendor for the ceremony, and the many eyes that now looked upon them. 

All around the edge and even hovering in the open air beyond were dragons, hundreds of dragons assembled from what remained of the blue, green, bronze, and red flights. At the center of the wide, circular platform stood Merithra, Kalecgos, and Nozdormu, decorated in equally fine robes and each wearing a diadem of a different material upon their heads. Merithra’s was woven from thin branches, their wide leaves and white blossoms enchanted with the magic of her dragonflight to be evergreen. Nozdormus’ could not be looked upon for very long without straining one’s eyes; it was a ring of fine white sand that twisted and writhed in an infinite loop. Kalecgos had a particularly warm smile beneath a circlet of thin ice, etched with white-violet arcane runes. 

They had assembled around a golden brazier that burned with a strange white-violet flame radiating an immense heat that banished the winter chill. Queen Alexstrasza, flanked by her sin'dorei consorts, reigned in the center. She wore a great white gown made of fine lace and her great, gold and rose topaz decorated horns were adorned with a long veil. The Life-Binder looked upon Wrathion and Anduin with careful, golden eyes. She raised her long hands, the golden chains that hung from her fingers and wrists jingling in the cold air.

“ **I welcome the Black Dragonflight’s return to serve at the altars of Wyrmrest Temple.** ” Alexstrasza beckoned with one curled, white claw. “ **You may, for the first time, take your place amongst the Dragon Aspects, young son of Deathwing.** ”

Wrathion’s breath hitched, a small growl rising in the back of his throat. Anduin raised his hand and pressed it to the small of his back, murmuring a small prayer. Warm, soothing tendrils of the Light rose to the priest’s fingertips.

“I love you,” Anduin said, quietly.

Wrathion’s shoulders relaxed and his expression hardened into one of cool determination. He stepped forward and began the long walk down the maroon velvet carpet that ran from the Chamber of the Earth to the center of the shrine across the cold, white stone floor. Anduin remained at his side, keeping stride with a slight limp in his gait, hands folded behind the small of his back so that he could occasionally brush a reassuring elbow against the dragon’s arm. Wrathion then spoke, his deep, draconic voice ringing clear and loud over the chamber and reaching into the cold, snow-kissed sky

“ **I am Wrathion, the Earth-Warder of Azeroth, the Black Prince, the uncorrupted son of Neltharion and Nyxondra. And beside me stands my Prime Consort, High Priest Anduin Llane Wrynn.** ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- There will be one last chapter: an epilogue. I wanted to give this chapter a more or less “proper” ending, though, because the epilogue is basically kid fic, so anyone who doesn’t like kid fic should feel free to just skip it.
> 
> \- The title was inspired by Josh Ritter’s _The Temptation of Adam_ , a song about a love so powerful that it was worth destroying the world for
> 
> Also, please check out this amazing piece of art that was inspired by the proposal scene in this chapter, I just about cried when I saw it:
> 
> ["The star ruby dropped to settle in the neck of Anduin’s tunic, over an old dark scar that crossed his chest just below his throat."](https://twitter.com/ClaretAsh11/status/1340331396091367425?s=20)
> 
> And follow the artist, Ash, for more amazing art, including lots and lots of gorgeous wranduin:
> 
> [ClaretAsh11 on twitter](https://twitter.com/ClaretAsh11)  
> [claret-ash on tumblr](https://claret-ash.tumblr.com/)


	9. Epilogue: The Earth-Warder's Legacy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A very big thank you once again to [Laeviss](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laeviss/pseuds/Laeviss) for heroically taking the time to help me edit yet another monster of a chapter and for being an invaluable beta reader. With an extra thank you for letting me borrow Ellie Ellerian from the very excellent [Made to Be](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26361211/chapters/64204696), which you should all go read. Right now. I'll wait.
> 
> Thank you for reading <3

And though I came to forget or regret all I have ever done, yet I would remember that once I saw the dragons aloft on the wind at sunset above the western isles; and I would be content.

\- Ursula K. Le Guin

* * *

Just at the crack of dawn, when the first rays of morning sun started to peek through the lowest points in the Burning Steppe’s eastern mountain range, Anduin Wrynn rose from sleep. He was the sole occupant of the chamber’s large, comfortable nest of moss, ash, and rock, which he expected. The bedroom itself was also empty, with only long strands of ivy and ferns for company, as well as the faint morning glow pouring in through the wall-height windows. The priest’s quiet voice filled the empty bedroom chamber with the words of a small prayer and the soft, warm glow of the Light came to his palms as he laid them across his lower back, taking deep breaths in between each line, and moving them until he had soothed the drowsy stiffness from his back and legs. He folded the warm quilt and left it on top of one of the two hand-sewn pillows in the nest, running a thumb with affection over the elaborate embroidery stitched around the edge of the pillowcase.

Anduin wasted no time in getting dressed, donning a gnomish engineered prosthesis and a white cotton tunic, brown breeches, and simple knee-high leather boots with flat heels. A dark red star ruby necklace hung from his neck, the precious gemstone resting in the v-shaped part of his shirt. He slipped a small leather cord around his wrist and buckled a thick leather belt around his waist, securing a draenei prayer book to a weapon’s hook at the left side. A dark wool cloak with a worg fur collar went around his shoulders, fastened with a small silver clasp engraved with a wolf’s head. Before he left, he took a small glass vial filled with a red healing potion from a cabinet in the large bathroom and tucked it into a small pouch hanging on the right side of his belt.

The living quarters of Blackwing Lair were quiet. Anduin’s footsteps echoed off the stone and iron walls of the corridors as he made his way down to the kitchen. The space smelled of the sharp herbs drying in bundles from twine attached to the rafters and the counters were covered with empty cans, bottles of vinegar, and packages of salt in preparation for pickling the Stranglethorn cucumbers, peppers, and carrots waiting in the ice box. Using a pump at the sink basin, the priest filled a canteen with cold water, taking a long drink and topping the container off before slinging it over his shoulder. He splashed his face and then took a handful of brown sugar cubes from a small glass jar in the pantry, wrapping them in a cloth napkin and tucking the bundle into a small pouch hanging on the right side of his belt. Before leaving, he swiped a large red apple off the top of a small pile in a wooden bowl sitting on the ornate iron table which he bit into with great enthusiasm as he walked.

At one end of the Lair’s outer balcony, opposite the side where Nefarian’s old throne still sat collecting dust, Anduin opened the rope placeholder that stood in for an as-of-yet unconstructed door to a large stone enclosure. The harsh, high mountain wind whipped at his blond hair, sending it fluttering across his face. Inside the shelter, there were a number of wooden stalls, their floors covered with a comfortable layer of straw, only one of which was occupied.

“Good morning, Zephyr,” Anduin murmured to the white gryphon that rose her head to greet him, her brown, beady eyes focusing on the chewed apple core in his hand. “Did you sleep well? Hm? It seems like you did; look at those bright, wide, beautiful eyes…”

Anduin let the chirping gryphon snatch up the remainder of the fruit, only lightly pinching his palm with the tip of her sharp beak as she did so. He stroked the smooth, white down on Zephyr’s head while she crunched, making quick work of disappearing the remainder of the apple down her throat. He set a leather riding saddle on her back over a woven blue and white Highmountain blanket and fixed a harness with reins around her bobbing head, to a minimal amount of fuss from the beast herself. Before Anduin guided her out of the stables and onto the windy landing, he took a moment to comb his hair out with his fingers and tie it back into a practical ponytail using the leather cord around his wrist. Then he donned a pair of thin brown leather riding gloves to protect his scarred hands from the chill of the air.

Though the promise of spring would come as the sun rose higher, the mornings on the Burning Steppes were still frigid and laced with frost. Anduin paid little mind to it as he wrapped his cloak tightly around him and coaxed Zephyr into the air. His heart leapt at the thrill of seeing the red lava lake and mithril-laced cliffs fly out far beneath them, turning into worn trails and charcoal-gray gravel and dirt. The cold wind and adrenaline blasted away any lingering lethargy, far quicker than coffee ever had. The late-winter sky was clear and dark blue, brighter on the white edge of the eastern horizon that Anduin flew towards.

Anduin rode for a half hour or so before guiding the gryphon down towards a long stone cabin, situated beside a smaller, rickety wooden stable. There was a stone water well sticking out of the hard, frosted ground a few yards from the edge of the house and a reasonable plot of land marked off with iron posts connected by twine that rippled in the wind. Three goats watched with murderous, wide black eyes from a wooden fenced corral as Anduin landed, the gryphon rumbling as she waited for her rider to remove her harness. Once freed, Zephyr let out a caw of indignation before she flew to the top of the barn roof and lounged across the sun-warmed black tiles, preening her feathers, while Anduin headed towards the farmhouse.

“ _Bal'a dash,_ Anduin,” Tynnair greeted from where he sat at a sparse wooden table, hunched over a set of watercolors with his foot propped up on the neighboring chair.

“ _Bal'a dash,_ ” Anduin replied, removing his cloak and hanging it up on a thick nail banged into the cement that held the stone walls together. “ _Doral ana'die?_ ”

Tynnair sighed, golden eyes rolling towards the ceiling as he lowered his brush. “They have me watching the _oven_.”

The first floor, most of it unfinished except for the walls and the wood-fire oven, was filled with the delicious smell of what Anduin recognized as warm, rising bread. Several finished loaves sat, stacked, on top of the single flour-dusted wooden countertop beside the stove. A workbench piled with tools stood adjacent to the oven. Someone had thought to lay down a rug near the hearth, which was also sprinkled with flour at one edge.

“I take it Right’s yeast was a success?” Anduin asked, raising a brow as he carefully knelt down beside Tynnair on the bare but gritty stone floor. 

Tynnair carefully lifted his ankle from the seat of the neighboring chair and eased it into Anduin’s waiting palms. “I suppose so. She was up hours before the sunrise getting started on those. Arlios was supposed to finish up, but he’s decided it’s more important to work on the bed frames he started last week.”

“I’m sorry that you pulled the short straw,” Anduin said with a small laugh as he worked on unwrapping the bandage and splint from Tynnair’s slender foot. He turned it in one direction, then the other, gently probing the tender, swollen dark brown skin. “It seems like you’re doing a good job of staying off it. The swelling has gone down quite a bit.”

Anduin closed his eyes, cupping both hands around Tynnair’s ankle as he began to pray. The Light warmed his palms, casting a white-yellow glow across the human and the curious sin’dorei. Tynnair sighed with relief as the soothing heat spread up his calf and down his foot.

“There we are,” Anduin concluded, reaching for the fresh roll of bandages Tynnair had ready and waiting beside the tin cup he kept his dirty paintbrush water in. “I think you should be able to put more weight on it after a couple more days of rest.”

“ _Anar'alah,_ what a relief,” Tynnair said with a sigh. “Just in time for Right to bullying me into delivering her bread to our neighbors, I suppose.”

“Neighbors?” Anduin’s brows shot up in surprise as he began to re-wrap the splint. “Isn’t the nearest Dark Iron farm an hour’s ride from here?”

Tynnair’s long, feathery black brows furrowed together, his breath hitching in slight pain as Anduin worked. “According to Right, that counts as a neighbor. She’s determined to at least attempt to be on good terms with everyone in the western half of the Burning Steppes.”

“I suppose that’s not a bad idea,” Anduin admitted.

Taking a slice of fresh bread for himself, Anduin bid Tynnair a good day and chewed as he made his way outside and across the yard. Zephyr was still nestled on the frost-laced roof, preening. Below her, the sound of a hammer grew louder and louder as Anduin approached. The human raised a hand to wave at Arlios, who had set up a number of woodworking tools in the large open space at the far end, constructing what did look like the beginnings of a bedframe. Two goats bleated and glared at Anduin from one stall. Reverence lifted his head over the side of another, huffing into Anduin’s open palm that was lifted to greet him.

“Good morning, my friend,” Anduin said as he felt the warm nose explore his arm and shoulder, the damp snorts blowing his bangs from his ear. He reached into the pouch at his waist and withdrew the sugar cubes, holding them out to the eager mouth. “How is retirement serving you today?”

Reverence gave a lazy snort, which Anduin accepted as a positive answer. The priest took his time brushing down the soft coat and golden mane, running his Light-touched fingers across deep lines of knotted scar tissue in the cream-colored flank. Soft tendrils of holy energy sank into the tissue and bone, easing the animal’s old aches and pains. He continued down the clydesdale’s legs, taking extra care with the front left one, which hadn’t been the same since taking a hit with shrapnel from a fel canister during the Battle of Lordaeron. Reverence showed incredible patience and a minimal amount of annoyance as he put up with the prodding, sniffing Anduin’s hair in search of more sugar cubes whenever the priest was within reach of his long neck. When Anduin was satisfied that the horse was fit for a short ride, he saddled Reverence and led the ex-war horse from the stables by a simple pair of leather reins and bridle. A wispy puff from a quick levitation spell boosted his heel and helped him mount into the stirrups without putting much strain on his own legs or the horse’s.

Despite the small stutter in his stride, Reverence seemed eager as ever for the fresh morning air and Anduin guided him at a slow clip across the barren farmland, humming to himself. The large, shuffling hooves sounded crisp and loud on the frozen, packed dirt. He made his way towards a fenced area of land, where two figures watched a cluster of five cows graze. One was a human woman, sitting on top of the stone barrier with a crossbow in her lap. The other was a tall orc with a dark ponytail that trailed down to her waist, leaning against the fence with her arms folded beside the human.

“Good morning,” Anduin called as he approached, Reverence’s ears swiveling with excitement at his rider’s enthusiasm.

Left turned around to greet him with a small smile. Right raised her hand to wave, her eyes still trained on the cows. Braziers ignited with a strange red-purple fire were strewn across the area and the dirt within the confines of the fence was littered with soft indents of hoofprints and clumps of upturned top soil.

“Good morning,” Left’s smile warmed as she watched the priest lead Reverence up alongside the stone fence. The orc offered her arm to allow the horse to sniff her knuckles. “You look well this morning. Are you feeling better?”

“Thank you.” Anduin’s voice lilted with pleasant surprise. His cheeks were flushed from the crisp air, even though he could feel the sun beginning to chase the night’s chill away. “I am. Much better. The turn of the season seems to be agreeing with me.”

“You’re not the only one,” Right noted, taking a sip of something from a tin thermos she had cradled between her gloved hands. Warm steam wafted from the mouth of the container.

Anduin shifted in the saddle, reaching behind him to pet Reverence’s warm flank as he gazed out over the field. The clydesdale’s long, thick tail swished in pleasure from the touch. The five cows were huddled together around a meager patch of green grass poking up from the frozen ground.

“Oh, are they taking to the field?” Anduin asked. He was answered by a brown-spotted cow who lowered her large head to take a healthy mouthful of the plant in question between her teeth. She pulled it up, chewing with slow, thoughtful movements, as if she were taking the taste into serious consideration before committing to ingestion.

“They sure are,” Right supplied, after another sip. She offered the thermos to Left.

“I suppose they just finally became tired of the hay in the barn,” the orc mused as she declined the drink with a gentle push of her palm.

Anduin rubbed his fingers across the light stubble on his chin as he similarly studied the cattle. “How much meat does a growing drake need, on average?”

“A lot,” Left and Right replied, without hesitation and in perfect unison.

Anduin grimaced. “I suppose we’ll need quite a few more cattle, then.”

“I do not want to explain to a Defias militia from the other end of their rifles why they keep losing cattle to a hungry drake on their side of the mountains.” Right made a humming noise in agreement, lips resting on the brim of the thermos, letting the coffee-scented steam waft across her face. “What we need is a self-sustaining, _breeding_ herd.”

Anduin sighed, exhaling deeply. “Well, then, we’ll have to make that happen, somehow. Elwynn and Redridge really don’t have any farm animals to spare, not to mention Westfall...”

The priest’s voice trailed off. His gloved hand tightened around the loose reins. He felt Left’s eyes slide toward his own face, which had become drawn into an expressionless mask.

“Just take care of the things that are in your control,” Left suggested, her voice gentle. “And leave the livestock problem to us.”

Right nodded. “There’s no sense in losing sleep over it before we even have a growing whelp’s stomach to keep satiated. We have time.”

Anduin reached over to pat Reverence’s neck. He bid the Blacktalon agents goodbye and with a nod and a click of his tongue, he resumed his unhurried journey around the perimeter of the pen. As he rode, listening to Reverence’s excited breaths in the cold air, he tried to imagine what the barren land would look like covered in grass and contentedly mooing cows.

* * *

With Reverence freshly exercised and fed, Anduin returned to Nefarian’s Lair and saw to it that Zephyr was comfortably resting in her stable with fresh straw for her bed and grain in her trough. He retreated to the kitchens to polish off a second apple with a block of cheese and half a link of cold spiced sausage and to fetch a pair of chilled beer bottles from the ice box. He took them deep into the recesses of the Lair, where the heat of the mountain swelled so strongly that it chased away the last of the lingering goosebumps and made the glass on the bottles in his hands begin to sweat with condensation. 

Within the walls of the Rookery, the great furnaces roared from behind the slitted iron grates in the walls. Nestled between the pillars along the far end, backlit by the magma-spurned flames, sat a great nest of dark glittering basalt rocks hoisted on a small elevated platform above a glowing fire pit. Anduin felt his face grow red and his muscles relax from the intensity as he approached a long, ornate stone bench that sat in front of the nest. Sitting atop a silk pillow on the floor with his back reclining against the bench was Wrathion, balancing a handsomely carved dwarven guitar on his lap. One boot lay splayed out before him, the light of the fire glinting off the gilded curl of the leather toe and the embroidery of his loose pants, the other booted foot tucked in close to his hip. His dark, curled brown hair lay loose over his shoulders, his expression distant but thoughtful as he stared at the nest and ran his claws across the strings.

The sound of Anduin’s boot heels clicking against the stone tiles and echoing off the ancient walls was enough to announce his presence as he crossed the room with a slight limp in his step. He slid onto the bench, Wrathion leaning forward to accommodate him as the priest settled with his legs to cradle either side of the dragon’s frame. Wrathion leaned back, pressing into his left knee.

“Hello, Earth-Warder,” Anduin murmured, slipping a kiss on the bone of Wrathion’s cheek as he leaned forward to set one of the beer bottles down on the floor beside the dragon.

Wrathion hummed in acknowledgement as he turned his head, his fingers pausing their strumming as the human’s lips met his in a deep kiss. Anduin slid one hand over Wrathion’s shoulders, squeezing tightly as he pressed both knees inward.

Wrathion released his hold on the guitar neck to take Anduin’s hand, massaging the knuckles with his thumb. “How are you feeling today, my dear?”

Anduin smiled a little into Wrathion’s hair, losing himself in the familiar, comforting scent. “Very well. It’s been a good day. Though I’ll probably indulge in a long, hot soak before bed, regardless.”

A deep, rumbling purr began to stir in the dragon’s breast as Anduin’s other hand slid forward to rub his chest. Anduin felt it reverberate through his bones at his knee. His fingers brushed across the pair of silver rings Wrathion wore on a chain around his neck. 

“I enjoy watching the sunset from the windows in the bathroom,” Anduin paused, then murmured: “I enjoy it even more when you’re there beside me.”

His heart fluttered as he watched Wrathion’s expression soften, an easy, genuine smile slipping across the dragon’s face at the suggestion. Catching him off guard to shower him with affection was growing to be his consort’s favorite pastime. 

“We’ll see,” Wrathion tried to brush his lapse in decorum aside, releasing Anduin’s hand to resume his idle plucking at the guitar strings. “What other trouble will you get up to this afternoon?”

“Well,” Anduin murmured, pressing his lips once again to the crown of Wrathion’s head, stroking the dragon’s shoulders as he contemplated. “First, I’m going to massage these knots from your back while I finish drinking this excellent Dark Iron ale.”

A small groan escaped Wrathion’s lips as Anduin’s thumbs found the first knot in his mortal muscles, a whisper of the Light passing through to soothe the tension. 

“Then,” Anduin continued, laying a second kiss on Wrathion’s head an inch or so from where he had placed the first. “I’ll take over your desk to pen an answer to Velen’s latest letter. He seems pleased that I have more time to write to him now and I’ve no intention of disappointing him.”

Wrathion quietly exhaled in relief as a second knot was touched by the Light in Anduin’s hands. “My offer still stands to procure a second desk of your own.”

“Nothing would make me happier than to never have a desk of my own again,” Anduin’s voice was light, teasing. “Besides, I like yours, it suits me on the occasions I need to use it.”

“I see.” The music paused as Wrathion’s rumbling increased and he tipped his head back and sighed, relaxing fully into Anduin’s experienced hands. “As you wish.”

“After I write my letter,” Anduin gave a third kiss to the side of Wrathion’s head, just above the curve of his ear beneath his thick curls of hair. “I’d like to see how far I can get in the biography that I borrowed from Moira about the history of the Thorium Brotherhood. Then I’ll do some stretching and probably see if Ebyssian needs help with anything.”

“Ahh,” Wrathion murmured, letting Anduin tip his head forward and part his hair down the middle.

Anduin’s eyes flickered upward as he pushed the pads of his glowing fingers up and down Wrathion’s long neck. In the center of the nest sat an oval-shaped object that could have easily been mistaken for another rock if not for the fact that it was too uniform in shape. Its black surface absorbed most of the light around it, lightly textured, almost like leather. A faint red, flickering halo topping the dome, and if Anduin turned his chin slightly, he could catch a rainbow sheen on the surface just out of the corner of his eye. The dragon egg appeared to Anduin’s untrained eyes the same as it had ever been. Wrathion’s journals told a different story.

“Do you think you’ll join me in the nest for at least a few hours tonight?” Anduin asked. “I worry that you’re not getting enough sleep.”

“Perhaps,” Wrathion said. “I’m waiting for her to settle down, she hasn’t gotten much sleep either these past few days.”

“She?” Anduin repeated, laying his fingertips on both sides of Wrathion’s jaw and giving a gentle, upward tap to signal that he could straighten again. "How do you know the child will be a girl?"

"Because she told me so," Wrathion replied. "We’ve spent quite a bit of time talking to each other this week.”

“Talking?” Anduin’s brows arching upward as he digested this new information. “Quite a _bit_? As in, on more than one occasion?”

“Yes,” Wrathion nodded in affirmation, the guitar strings humming beneath his black claws. “Dragon whelps are sentient months before they break from the shell.”

Anduin squinted at the egg, considering this. He didn’t think he had ever had a single coherent thought as a human baby, nevermind in the time before that. “Do you remember what was going on when you were inside your own egg?”

Wrathion went quiet. Anduin felt a shameful blush darken his cheeks as he realized what he was asking.

“I’m sorry.” The Light’s glow increased as Anduin sent a small wave washing over Wrathion’s entire upper back with his apology.

Wrathion sighed and Anduin felt a small shiver ripple beneath his palms. “...I was well aware of what was going on.”

The dragon’s voice changed, picking up tempo to a more scientific pace as if he was attempting to banish the memories with neutral information. “The length of time spent absorbing information about the outside world from within the shell varies, of course, depending on the whelp in question. I myself burst forth quite early. All things said and done, I would have liked to have a little more time."

Anduin leaned forward and folded both arms around to rest across Wrathion's collarbone, wrapping him in an embrace. He let the Light continue to flow through the dragon in faint, gentle ripples, relaxing any lingering tension from his chest and lungs.

“Does she have a name yet?” Anduin asked.

"Not yet." Wrathion raised his strumming hand to run his claws across the scar-covered back of Anduin's hands. "She is being rather secretive with her ideas."

Anduin cleared his throat, raising his voice an octave as he leaned in towards the egg.

" _Pleased to make your acquaintance!_ " the priest shouted, his voice echoing into the rafters to meld with Wrathion’s laughter.

"She can hear us perfectly fine as we were." Wrathion tipped his chin thoughtfully to one side. "I suppose I should introduce you.”

The dragon’s expression drew inward as he studied the nest. His mouth did not move, nor did any sound leave his throat. The rumbling purr also subsided, leaving just the faint _thumping_ sound of his two beating hearts against his mortal ribs. Anduin felt himself grow still in his embrace, the Light receding from his hands as he waited for something, anything, to happen.

After some time had passed, Wrathion announced: "She has given you permission to touch her egg.”

Anduin smiled, despite himself. “Tell her I’m sorry, but I think the shell might be too hot for me.”

Wrathion tilted his head, eyes turning to look at the nest, before smiling and correcting, "She is in fact quite _insistent_ , so that she may meet you properly. She doesn’t understand that doing so would burn you."

Anduin sat up, staring down at his palm as he curled and uncurled his fingers, listening to the joints make quiet _pops_. “I suppose I could try using a shield.”

Wrathion arched a doubtful brow and twisted around to look directly into his consort’s face, then gave his consent with a small nod. Anduin released Wrathion from his embrace and rose to his feet with a small grunt, stepping towards the nest. The flush in his face deepend as he approached the radius of the fire’s heat, but the soothing warmth it brought was a small pleasure at the same time. Standing at the edge of the nest, the leather toes of his boots indenting the gray terrain of cinders, Anduin murmured a few lines of a simple prayer. His words called upon the Light to envelop his palm in a thin, iridescent halo. The priest extended his white shielded fingertips warily into the nest. Up close, he could see even more details in the subtle pattern that covered the surface of the egg, including the hollow divots where the spines had fallen off months ago. The darkness of the shell was as opaque as ever and there was no sign that anything was growing within.

Anduin brought his left hand to rest on the rough, ashen surface. The pads of his fingertips made contact first, then gradually slid forward until his entire hand lay flat on the top of the dome, close to where its oval shape narrowed. Between his calloused skin and the shell, the Light hummed with its persistent, gentle resonance. Though he had not been sure what to expect, Anduin found himself somewhat disappointed. There was nothing spectacular about the egg. It was very much like touching a hot stone that had rolled from a campfire. Anduin raised a brow before turning to face Wrathion, who watched the exchange with a strange, enigmatic expression on his face. The dragon was not quite smiling, nor did not seem displeased as he continued to pluck the strings on his guitar. 

A small tremor pushed upward into the center of Anduin’s shielded palm, as if something quite small had bumped against the inner surface of the shell.

Wrathion laughed at the look of shock that crossed his consort’s face. Anduin withdrew, letting the shield drop as he brushed his palm against the brown linen fabric of his pants. The shield had carried away with it a strange ash from the surface of the eggshell. He could still feel the ghost of the whelp’s nudge on the center of his palm.

"She says that it's very nice to meet you," Wrathion’s smile was warm and radiant. "And that she looks forward to the day when she can see you with her eyes."

Anduin couldn't help but stare as he made his way back to the bench, a trickle of sweat running down the side of his face from standing so close to the fire. "She said all of that? You’re joking."

"Anduin Wrynn." Wrathion’s expression dropped into one of mock offense as his claws strummed a playful, resonant chord that swelled to the hollow stone rafters. “I would _never_.”

The consort returned the smile and shook his head, taking a careful seat once again on a pillow at the bench with Wrathion cradled between his legs. Wrathion set his guitar down to pick up the beer bottle and snap the top from the lid.

“You say she can hear everything in this room?” Anduin asked, his fingers carding through the ends of Wrathion’s dark brown curls.

“When she is awake,” Wrathion confirmed after a sip of the warming amber brew. “And she has had a great deal of difficulty sleeping as of late...the reason for my continual presence here.”

Anduin nodded. After a moment, his lips parted and he began to sing. It was a tune he’d had to guess at, strung from half-lost memories and his imagination. The lyrics were one of many scribbled in the margins of the old journal he had brought with him from Stormwind Keep, something that sat in the back of his mind like a returned memory.

“ _On the wings of the wind over the dark rolling deep_.” Anduin’s voice quavered, uncertain, as he found his purchase on the first few words and his fingers continued to stroke Wrathion’s hair. It took only those few words for his voice to strengthen and rise into the Rookery’s rafters. “ _A na’aru is coming to watch over thy sheep. A na’aru is coming to watch over thee. So list to the wind from the Stormwind sea…_ ”

Wrathion had grown tense with surprise at the first notes, a rare sound that he hadn’t heard from his consort in quite some time, not since he bore the title of _king_. As the dragon listened, he eventually settled, sinking deeper against Anduin’s lap, the scales of his mortal cheek coming to rest on the inside of the human’s left knee.

When Anduin paused to take a breath, he heard Wrathion murmur in the space between, his voice quiet with relief and astonishment:

“She is falling asleep.”

* * *

Strong rays of golden sunlight filled the washing chamber as Anduin prepared his evening bath. He had left his clothes in a pile beside the nest in the bedroom, so he walked naked through the spacious, plant-lined chamber, his bare and metal feet alternating with clicking and padding footsteps on the tiles. The rugged stone basin was large enough to comfortably hold both a full-grown dragon and a handful of attentive, mortal-sized consorts, though lately the basin only saw the utilization of one. Using the edge of a knife, Anduin sprinkled in shavings from a chunk of lavender-pink mineral salt prepared by the healers at the Exodar, a gift from his last visit to pray at the holy crystal pools. Soon, a generous atmosphere of scented thick steam wafted through the air, glowing with the light of the setting sun as it streamed in through the floor-to-ceiling length windows that looked out over the Burning Steppes.

Anduin set down a bottle of dark red wine and an empty glass at the edge of the basin, easing himself into a sitting position beside them, and worked to remove his prosthesis from his right thigh. He sighed as he rolled off the rubber sock, draping it across the device now prone on the stone-tiled floor, and massaged the limb, enjoying the feeling of fresh air on the skin. Before the basin was completely full, he slid his lean, scar-laced body off the edge and into the water. It was very hot, warmed by the natural lava vents on its journey from the base of the mountain to Nefarian’s old chambers, but not so hot that it would burn. With a relieved groan, he swam over to where the water gushed down from the hanging, wide-mouthed spray of the pipe like a waterfall, letting it fall over his head and down his broad shoulders, pounding into the space between them across his back. His skin reddened around the toughened lines of jagged war scars as the heat seeped in and soothed the more mundane aches he could never fully shake.

The priest scrubbed his limbs using a chunk of charcoal-colored soap and worked a dollop of pale green shampoo from a glass bottle that sat beneath the hanging vines that had claimed most of the stone walls the basin nestled against. When he was through, he floated back over to where the wine bottle sat waiting and poured himself a glass, settling in to drink as he watched the sun begin its descent, humming to himself as he listened to music playing from a phonograph in the bed chamber. The heat, the weightlessness of the water’s support, the soothing scent of tea leaf lingering in his hair, the sour wine on his tongue, it was almost enough to send him to sleep right there like a contented otter floating in a stream.

The soft, familiar noise of dragon claws clicking against stone drew Anduin’s attention back towards the doorway, where he saw Wrathion in his tall, slight mortal form crossing the floor. The dragon had also shed his clothes, beams of sun falling across his dark brown skin, the bright golden glare almost masking the glow from his red eyes. He sank down on one knee beside the wine bottle, reaching to cup Anduin’s chin in his hand. For a moment, he simply stared into the human’s face, his eyes distant and shimmering behind wisps of sunset-tinged smoke as his face softened.

“May I join you?” Wrathion asked as he ran his thumb across a faint freckle on Anduin’s pale cheek.

Anduin looked up with clear blue-gray eyes from beneath his damp, blond eyelashes, nuzzling into Wrathion’s warm palm. “Of course.”

Ripples spread outward from the spot where Wrathion lowered himself into the basin, reaching out to entwine his long arms and legs around Anduin, who was waiting to receive him. Laying a string of slow kisses across his neck and chest, Anduin carried Wrathion through the water over to a where a bed of moss covered the shallow edge of the basin. Wrathion stretched out to recline, dripping, as Anduin took care to scrub his back and limbs with the same grainy charcoal-gray soap, avoiding the dark, thin lines of precise scar tissue that ran up the dragon’s sides and in rings around his wiry arms and legs. Anduin used a small brass bowl to rinse the suds away and then massaged oil into the dragon’s hands and feet. He worked the tangles from his long dark hair and shampooed it with a silken mixture from a different bottle that left clouds of amber-scented white suds on the surface of the water. When Anduin was through, Wrathion returned to the water and rewarded him with a kiss on the mouth.

“Well done, my consort,” Wrathion murmured into Anduin’s ear with a teasing smile, eyelids lowering as he gave an affectionate brush of his bearded jaw along the human’s faint stubble. “You’ve certainly learned how to serve your dragon master well.”

A full, rose-colored blush covered Anduin from the tips of his ears to his chest as he continued to tread water, supporting Wrathion’s back with his hands. He lifted his chin almost in defiance, strands of his darkened, thin wet hair falling across one scarred shoulder. “ _Learned_? I _beg_ your pardon, I don’t recall hearing any complaints about how well I served you when I still wore a crown.”

“Typical human arrogance,” Wrathion huffed, taking Anduin’s jutting chin in his hand. The priest felt a challenging smile tug at his lips as he let himself surrender to the dragon’s grasp. “I suppose it didn’t occur to you to even ask?”

“No, it did not,” Anduin murmured from between Wrathion’s fingers, feeling a throbbing heat stir between his legs. “For that human king was already utterly consumed by the desire to keep you as comfortable and content as was in his power to make you.”

Wrathion’s eyes snapped open a fraction wider, washing both of them in a surprised red light. Anduin chuckled and leaned forward to press his mouth gently against Wrathion’s warm lips, the pads of his fingers rubbing the muscles at the small of the dragon’s narrow back. He felt Wrathion’s hips rise to meet his in the water, and the sound of his own vulnerable, human groan echoed off the wet stones around them as sharp fangs nipped down to claim him.

* * *

Anduin jolted awake from a dead sleep, stiff as if his entire body had seized in shock, bangs twisted and laden with damp sweat from his brow. His hands fluttered to his chest, a half-formed prayer on his lips, but there was no sharp pain to mend, no spasm locking his weak hip, just the usual dull aches and the thudding of his far too excited heart. Satisfied that he wouldn’t hurt himself by trying to move, he threw the stifling heft of the quilt off his limbs and pushed himself up onto his elbows in the soft nest moss, body clammy and throbbing with his own panic as he took in the empty bedchamber. He was greeted only by cool shadows and gentle moonlight streaming in through the large windows, the balcony doors still safely fastened shut and the passive, cold stars glinting in the distance. Beyond, the Burning Steppes looked as calm and peaceful as it ever had in the winter evenings, the snow broken by patches of a brilliant orange glow cast by sluggish, molten lava flows. The volcano’s core rumbled with a now-familiar assurance, deep within the mountain’s thick, mithril-laced walls. 

Something was wrong, though.

Anduin reached for his crutches. He swung out of the bedroom and down the spiral staircase in his plain linen nightshirt and under shorts, making the descent into Nefarian’s Lair and the familiar path through the increasingly heated labyrinth halls, towards the Rookery. Disorienting shapes pricked at the back of his racing mind, none of which he could find purchase on, until he reached the threshold of the great, ornate bronze doors.

**_ZUQ AG'XIG BORMAZ AG'THYZAK_ **

Anduin came to an abrupt halt as he doubled over from the force and intensity of the clamorous whisper. It rang so loud and infinite in its terrible, all-consuming pressure that it threatened to burst the veins in his temples and crush the air from both lungs. He threw one crutch down and raised the freed hand, shifting his body weight to lean heavily into the opposite support as he shouted a desperate string of prayers. The tendrils receded from his mind and body with a chorus of shrieks that may have blown out his eardrums had the prayer not enveloped him in a shield and filled him instead with the retaliatory chimes of an ethereal hymn. Once he had ensured that the traces of Void were gone from his flesh, he began a second invocation that drew holy fire to his hand. He cast it crashing around the hall and the doorway, watching thick tendrils the color of bruised skin char and disintegrate to ash, falling like a dark snow to the stone floor.

Heart still pounding and hands shaking, Anduin bent down to pick up his second crutch, finally allowing himself a moment to take stock in the more mundane aspects of the corridor and the doors. Wrathion’s wards had prevented the Void energy from crossing the threshold, but the weaker, almost half-hearted ones had been utterly destroyed. The doors themselves were cracked open, firelight spilling through in a narrow beam across Anduin’s body. He used his shoulder to push his way through them, stepping into the Rookery.

Spotting Wrathion down on the floor before the nest, Anduin hurried forward, a clammy chill clinging to his forearms and brow. The room was colder than normal and as he drew closer, he realized that the fire had gone so low that only neon orange embers glistened across the surface of the coals. Anduin’s heart leapt into his throat at the sight, his foot just missing a rolling potion vial on the stone tiles, the remnants of some kind of red mixture sticking to the bottom. There were a good deal more of them strewn around where Wrathion was sitting on his knees, ankles splayed out and tucked on either side of his hips. He did not move, even when Anduin shouted his name, the curls of his dark brown hair still where they hung across his shoulders. 

As Anduin came around, he saw that Wrathion’s red eyes were cast low, staring off at some distant point on the floor, hands limp and loosely curled around a dark bundle in his lap. Some kind of strange, thick fluid on the floor was coming away on the sole of his bare foot when he took a step and made finding purchase with the crutches a bit more difficult. It coated the entire area from the edge of the nest to where Wrathion sat. His billowing pants with their fine gold embroidery were soaked. There was no sign of the Void clinging to the Rookery itself, at least not that Anduin could see from a first glance at the shadows in the corners.

“Wrathion!” Anduin shouted again, fear causing his voice to crack. “Why is the fire--?”

Anduin’s voice was taken from his throat, the end of his sentence hanging like an unfinished prayer, when his mind caught up with what his eyes were seeing. The dark thing that Wrathion held in his lap, its surface glistening with very fine, iridescent scales, was his first look at a newborn dragon whelp.

The remnants of the egg lay in the nest, soft and curling in on itself now that there was nothing inside to support the walls.

Anduin dropped his crutches and eased himself down, unable to avoid sliding on what he guessed was fluid from inside the shell. He tore his gaze from the too-still body of the whelp to meet Wrathion’s eyes, placing two firm hands on his mate’s slumping shoulders.

“Wrathion,” he tried again. “Wrathion, what happened? How long have you been sitting here?”

Wrathion raised his chin, eyes unfocused as he struggled to meet Anduin’s. The red light highlighted the dark folds beneath. He looked so tired.

“...it was too soon.” His voice was unfamiliar and hoarse. “She wouldn’t breathe. Nothing I did could make her breathe.”

Anduin’s heart was pounding very quickly, sweat gathering on his brow as he turned his focus to the baby...the whelp. He tentatively moved his hands to cover Wrathion’s. Wrathion himself felt less warm than usual, as if the fiery blood was drained from his hands.

“Wrathion, you’re going into shock.” Anduin’s voice was calm and firm and did not match the terror that was threatening to choke him. In another moment, a white glow swept from his fingers into Wrathion’s and up the dragon’s arms. “Stay with me. Let me see.”

Wrathion’s hands twitched and he allowed Anduin to scoop up the small body and take it from him. The whelp’s limbs flopped without resistance and the thin membrane of wings began to tumble open on the long bony limbs but Anduin managed to more or less cradle the whelp in his arms, the slick blood-laced fluid coating his arms and lap, her tail dangling off the edge of his bare forearm. Wrathion swayed as if he were shaking himself from a dream, but settled back on his heels, eyes snapping to watch him with a fierceness that was unmistakably draconic.

“The fire, it’s about to go out,” Anduin urged again. He gently took the whelp’s small jaw between his thumb and forefinger and turned it over on her strength-less neck, resting it more comfortably in the inside crook of his elbow. There was no breath when he held the pad of his thumb over the small nostrils. There was a tiny horn, no bigger than a newborn human’s fingernail, at the tip of her snout. “We should stoke the flames.”

“There is no point in doing so,” Wrathion whispered, another spasm running through his limp hands. “It was too soon.”

Anduin turned his complete attention to the whelp in his arms. He ran his first and second finger together down the length of her body, from below her chin, down her chest, to across her belly. The scales were soft and gave into the pressure almost like human skin would. The Light in his fingertips left a trail of faint glittering sparks in its wake, illuminating details in the small form that he hadn’t been able to discern in the shadow of Wrathion’s lap. Her eyes were sealed shut beneath the ridges of a small crest.

A spark illuminated the fabric of Anduin’s tunic and the strands of loose blond hair that fell forward over his shoulders as he murmured a word. Once. Twice. The whelp’s body convulsed with each pulse and Wrathion made a startled noise, then a sound like a suppressed growl. Anduin continued, taking breaks to warm the whelp’s body with waves of Light washing over her, seeping into his own chest. His brows furrowed, something strange in her chest tugging at his mind. He flipped the whelp over and began to rub viciously at her back, in between the small bones of her shoulders, sparks falling across her scales and into the damp, fluid-soaked fabric of his tunic.

A violent cough seized the whelp’s body. A horrible choking noise echoed off the stone pillars as dark, blood-clotted fluid began to slide from between her now open jaws. Anduin continued to rub, pushing the Light upward through the small form, pausing only to use his finger to swipe the inside of her mouth and pull stubborn clumps of it free from gagging her. Anduin thought that he heard the sound of chimes somewhere in the back of his mind.

A long, anguished wail tore from the tiny mouth as it snapped open, a bright pink tongue curling between dark purple, toothless gums. Her limbs were now moving, kicking with a surprising ferocity, as she struggled and squirmed to roll over, wing striking against Anduin’s chest as they folded beneath her. Anduin continued to stroke the now heaving chest with his Light-blessed fingertips in an attempt to soothe her. Her ribs felt as delicate as a bird’s. Two small heartbeats fluttered like wings in a cage beneath his calloused fingertips, the ripples of scales still slick with the fluids from the inside of the egg.

“There, there,” Anduin murmured, a shaking smile twisting his mouth as he realized that the newborn whelp wouldn’t be able to hear him as she filled the Rookery’s ceiling with her first cries. “It’s not so bad out here. It’ll be alright.”

Red light flooded over both Anduin’s hand and the squirming whelp, glinting off the star ruby from its place on his chest, as Wrathion’s eyes blew open, wide with shock. Anduin’s arms tightened to contain the thrashing baby, wincing slightly as a clawed toe made contact with his inner elbow. After a few moments, she seemed to exhaust herself and her breathing settled into short, rhythmic shudders broken by the occasional gargled sob. Her hand found Anduin’s finger and clutched it so tightly it hurt as she stared up at Wrathion, who had slid closer so that he now sat with his folded legs pressed up against Anduin’s. With a sudden burst of renewed energy, she lunged for him. Wrathion let out a harsh huff in surprise as his hands shot out to catch her. She burrowed into the front of his white silk tunic, making small chittering noises and nuzzling his chest with her nose as if she were searching for something. Wrathion found his grip and attempted to cradle her body the way Anduin had.

Wrathion’s eyes finally snapped up to meet Anduin’s, filled with some mix of awe and fear.

“It’s alright,” Anduin said, reaching out to cup the side of Wrathion’s face. The Light’s soothing glow warmed the dragon’s cheek. Wrathion leaned into it, his eyes still wide. Anduin realized that his own were just as open. “Wrathion, the wards, there were--”

Wrathion’s head snapped around as he turned. The whelp was startled by his sudden movement and began to fuss again, writhing to hide her head almost completely between his arm and ribs.

“They’re gone,” Wrathion said, at last, his voice distant. His dark brown curls hid his expression from the angle where Anduin was seated, but the red glow from his eyes tinged the edge of his hair. “Discerning. I did not feel them break. I thought I banished the spectres that were drawn by the hatching...”

“Sit there and rest for a moment,” Anduin urged, bringing Wrathion’s gaze back around with a touch to the dragon’s elbow. “Let me put more coals on the fire, then I’ll see to the wards.”

When Wrathion hesitated, Anduin’s voice rose, but he kept his tone gentle enough to avoid further stress on the whelp. “Let me help you, Wrathion.”

* * *

Anduin stole away to the bedchambers where he washed and donned his prosthesis, slipping into a clean tunic, a fresh pair of pants, and his simple leather boots. He hurried back down to the Rookery with two buckets and a mop, feeling a great need to stay occupied with some kind of useful task. He paused along the way to double-check the broken wards by the doorway, ensuring that there were still no traces of the Void lingering in the corners. He performed a quick and simple cleansing on the entryway, leaving small runes of white Holy Light glittering on the ancient stone and bronze fastenings. They would be gone by the next sunrise, but it would give him enough time to plan a more permanent solution to deflect the gaze of the Old Ones from what was inside.

Leaving the cleaning tools on the floor next to the stone bench, Anduin knelt beside the nest fire and checked the coals, which now sustained generous licks of flames. He nudged them with a long iron poker to encourage some of the ones on the edge to catch the blaze. In the nest on top of the grate, Wrathion lounged on his stomach next to the remnants of the eggshell, his great horned head turning to watch his consort at work. The whelp nestled close to his chest in the warm crook of his front leg, as if she were trying to burrow into the scales on his breast.

Anduin stepped up to the edge of the fire, stopping where the heat became unbearable. His face was scalded red from the flush and sweat already dampening his tunic collar. “How are you doing?”

Wrathion’s great red eyes swept up from the whelp to bore into Anduin’s blue ones, watering just slightly from the smoke. “ **She is no longer speaking to me.** ”

For a moment, Anduin could only stare back into his bright, flaming gaze. He then also turned his gaze to the whelp. The small arc of her flank rose and fell with each heavy, sleep-laden breath. 

“Well, today’s been exhausting for her,” Anduin reasoned, rubbing the stubble that had accumulated on his chin. “I don’t think I’d have much energy for talking if I had to push my way out of an egg.”

Wrathion made an unsatisfied grunt and turned his head so that his snout was pointed downward as he contemplated the whelp. “ **I am concerned that she may be sick.** ”

Anduin did his best to find some clue that the strange creature was ill. To him, she seemed only as if she were sleeping, without any sign of discomfort. She was quiet except for her steady, even breathing and the occasional snuffle in an attempt to dislodge some kind of leftover phlegm from the inner egg. Anduin struggled to find some kind of soothing phrase that wouldn’t dismiss what, for all he knew, were legitimate concerns.

“I can’t tell, Wrathion,” the priest offered, gently. “She looks as if she’s just sleeping to me”

“ **Her scales are too soft and she spent far too long away from the fire, which was my fault, of course,** ” Wrathion mused, shaking his head, seemingly irritated by his own uncertainty. “ **She will likely be awake and hungry soon.** ”

“I’ll take my bow and go hunting for worg by the lava pools,” Anduin promised, as he also continued to study the tiny, coiled draconic form. “I’ll bring back a few of them, since I don’t suppose you’ve eaten anything in the past forty-eight hours, have you?”

Wrathion’s red eyes swiveled upward and Anduin swore he noticed something like a smile at the corner of the dragon’s mouth. “ **Ebyssian should meet the whelp. It is important that they become accustomed to each other’s presence, so she recognizes his scent as a member of our dragonflight and not as a predator. And I would like to speak with Left and Right as well as soon as possible.** ”

Anduin smiled as he pulled back his hair, using a leather cord around his wrist to tie a firm ponytail that his bangs immediately tried to escape from. “I’ll go saddle Zephyr and send for them now, if you’re ready for visitors. I’m sure they’ll be excited to see her.”

Wrathion’s scale-framed expression softened, an affectionate rumble starting up in his throat that caused the whelp to shift in her sleep. “ **Thank you, my dear.** ”

Anduin smiled, laying a hand over his chest and giving a small bow. “Of course, Your Highness. I’ll be back in an hour or two. Left and Right will likely be much sooner.”

Before he could leave the room, the sound of Wrathion’s urgent voice crossed the floor: “ **Anduin, wait, a moment!** "

Anduin’s boot heel squeaked as he pivoted. “Yes?”

“ **There is a letter in my third desk drawer, already in an envelope addressed to Merithra of the Dream. Please, seal it with black wax and deliver it to the postmaster in Shadowforge City. It is urgent that it be delivered soon, it slipped my mind yesterday.** ”

“Of course,” Anduin said with one last smile over his shoulder.

* * *

Anduin found Ebyssian out in the pasture where he usually was around mid-day, the cows and sheep watching with a range of expressions from boredom to mild curiosity as the elder dragon prayed over the gray clay earth. Five tall wooden totems stood erect in a wide circle, each bearing the face of a different animal native to the Burning Steppes and decorated with paint ground from refined minerals collected from the terrain around Blackrock Mountain. Ebyssian sang his long, ballad-length Highmountain hymns and his large hooves took him in a slow spiral outward from the center. He sprinkled a kind of seed and fertilizer mixture that he scooped out in big pawfuls from a bead-decorated leather sack slung across his shoulder. A strange blue-green haze hung in the air within the perimeter of the totems, the sight of which sent a cool electric running down Anduin’s spine and across his temples, much as the sight of a monk’s healing mists tended to do. 

Anduin hesitated, unsure if he should interrupt the ritual, but when Ebyssian spotted him, he seemed to know the exact reason why he was there the instant he spotted Wrathion’s consort, red-cheeked with his gryphon mount still huffing from a fresh descent. The prayer was broken in an instant, the light dissipating as if scattered by the mid-morning sunbeams, and whatever energy had been steadily and carefully built was gone. Ebyssian crossed the ground on heavy hooves, brushing what remained of the seed in his palms to the ground as he ran.

“It’s time already?” the elder dragon bellowed. “So soon?”

“Yes!” Anduin shouted back. “It happened in the early hours of the morning. Left and Right are already on their way. I’m going hunt--”

A blast of cold wind laced with dirt and gravel sent Anduin ducking behind his arm as Ebyssian transformed into his true form and took to the air. His beating wings sent a strong wind ripping across the ground, stirring the cattle and provoking a chorus of wary bleating and mooing. Anduin kept watch over the small herd until Arlios arrived, armed with a crossbow and a thermos of hot coffee to keep him warm, to take over the post. From there, Anduin took his own simple bow and quiver over to the distant hills in the south, Zephyr’s beady amber eyes watching from afar as he stalked the slinking, gray and brown furred beasts from behind the boulders that surrounded the pools of hot, molten lava.

Soon there were three fresh carcases tied to Zephyr’s flank as Anduin guided her back to Blackrock Mountain. She did not like being led into the Lair’s dark, warm cavernous passageways, but a soothing prayer and a juicy red apple waiting in Anduin’s outstretched palm as an incentive were enough to coax her to bring the cargo with her into the Rookery. Ebyssian’s massive, ancient form lounged outside the nest, his toes well into the fire beneath the grate, neck stretched out across the nest so that he was almost forehead-to-forehead with his brother. As Anduin walked closer, he saw that Ebyssian was cleaning the whelp with his long pink tongue while she sat between Wrathion’s outstretched forearms, filling the space with her high-pitched, uncertain squeaks and grumbles. Right was seated at the stone bench, one arm looped around Left’s waist where she sat beside her.

When Anduin approached, Left and Right immediately set to work helping him unhook the worg carcases and set them down on the tile floor which had been cleaned of the inner egg fluids left by the hatching earlier that morning. Left took Zephyr back to the stables on the lair’s terrace, allowing Anduin to sit and rest as he helped Right skin the worgs.

“ **There,** ” Ebyssian rumbled, when the first worg was waiting, raw and glistening red near the ashes of the nest’s hearth. “ **That must feel a little better, now, doesn’t it?** ”

The whelp gave no noise in response and used her newfound freedom to attempt a quick retreat underneath Wrathion’s arm. With great finesse that seemed almost uncanny considering the size of his teeth, Ebyssian tore a small strip of the raw meat from the worg’s shoulders and brought it into the nest. It began to crackle and hiss from the immense heat almost the instant the elder dragon set it down on the stone bedding, Anduin’s nostrils flaring from the smell. The whelp showed no interest in it. Even after Wrathion nudged her towards it with the front of his nose, her gaze and sniffing nostrils passed right over the cooking meat. She became distracted by her own tail instead

“Try breaking it up into smaller pieces,” Right suggested, miming a cutting motion from where she still crouched on the floor beside Anduin, cleaning up the viscera.

This, too, produced no result. When Wrathion attempted to dangle a small chunk from the tips of his fangs, the whelp became frightened and retreated to the rear of his flank to find a hiding spot in the curve of his tail. By this point, Left had returned and stood for a moment by Right’s shoulder, tugging leather riding gloves from her green hands as she watched.

“Why don’t you eat your fill and leave some of it out for her?” Left suggested as Wrathion stood up, lifting his tail and holding it above his hips to give away the whelp’s position. “She’ll most likely eat when she’s hungry enough.”

Anduin watched Wrathion exchange a look with Ebyssian. The younger dragon huffed, thick plumes of black smoke curling around his horns and into the air. Anduin’s nose twitched from the sudden scent of fresh charr.

“Eat, Wrathion, please,” the priest urged. “You’ve been down here for days.”

At last, Wrathion relented, making his way to the edge of the nest with care and extending his head out to tear into the worg carcass with frustrated snaps that betrayed the extent of his hunger. Even Anduin’s meager experience with draconic appetites told him that Ebyssian was restraining himself, allowing his brother to snap up the larger portion of the hunt. The raw strip of meat was moved outside the nest, where it wouldn’t cook or burn sitting on the hot stones within.

It sat there, untouched, for an entire day until at the first signs of rot, Andun finally threw it into the fire. The whelp did not show signs of hunger or fatigue. On the contrary, her energy was increasing at an alarming rate. Anduin had brought a book down into the Rookery to read out loud from the stone bench when suddenly the whelp decided that she had sufficiently explored every inch of the nest’s interior and leapt right over the edge in search of something new. Anduin dropped the book in surprise and lunged forward to catch her bounding form as he would one of the stray cats that had made their home in Stormwind Keep. Even as he heard Wrathion’s shout, he didn’t realize his mistake until he felt the scalding pain in his hands. With a yell, he released the whelp and she skittered across the floor as he dropped to his knees with a thud and a small clank of metal.

Wrathion was at once also on his knees before him, his mortal hands cupping Anduin’s violent red palms. “ _Anduin--!_ ”

“It’s alright,” Anduin groaned as he mentally began a prayer, cool Light flooding to his red and blistering palms. “My fault, I should’ve known. Where is…?”

He met the whelp’s wide, maroon-brown eyes from where she had frozen mid-step a distance away on the floor, watching him with a strange expression on her face. She made no further attempt to run when Wrathion approached her. She didn’t put up a fuss, either, when he scooped her up and carried her back towards the nest.

“She cannot spend too long away from the fire,” Wrathion explained, reaching over to set her back down in the nest. 

The whelp didn’t seem to agree with this and immediately hopped back out, this time padding through the ashes instead of running and leaving small, evenly-spaced dragon paw prints in her wake. Wrathion allowed this to happen, his red gaze swinging back and forth from Anduin prone on the ground to his daughter making circles around the room.

“What little notes Nefarian did leave are quite clear on the fact that black dragon whelps have difficulty maintaining a sufficient body temperature,” Wrathion mused as he made his way back to kneeling by Anduin’s side, still looking over his shoulder. “They require the constant application of heat, and she is months too early from the shell.”

Anduin broke concentration for a moment to steal a glance at the whelp, who did not seem to be that bothered by the cooler space she was exploring in the center of the room. She hissed furiously at a small loose piece of rock on the floor, attacking it with her front paws. 

“When she feels a chill, I’m sure she’ll make her way back,” Anduin reasoned. He smiled as a bead of sweat dripped down the side of his face from his hairline and traced the outer edge of his jaw. “Luckily this mountain is very warm. Her body temperature will only be able to drop by so much.”

Wrathion’s brows knit together as he studied the Light enveloping Anduin’s palms. The tips of his black claws traced the back of Anduin’s knuckles. “We must stock up on some sort of burn salve.”

Anduin let the prayer fade and examined the skin on his hands. Exhaustion swept into him in the wake of the effort it took to restore the skin. He had been quick enough to avoid a more arduous recovery. Just a light, stinging redness was left in the burn’s wake that would likely heal within a few days.

“I’ll be a little more careful next time,” Anduin said, flipping his palms to take Wrathion’s hands in his. He lifted them to his lips and smiled as he kissed the curled fingers, careful to avoid the claws. “Your Highness.”

Wrathion huffed, but a trace of a smile curled at the edge of his mouth, some of the worry easing from the corners of his eyes.

* * *

The fourth day after the hatching, Anduin entered the Rookery before dawn dressed in his riding gear, a cloth sling hung loose over his shoulders beneath his coat, dangling in front of his chest. Wrathion lay on his belly in the nest, his cheek flush beside the sleeping whelp. The fire beneath them was low, almost down to embers.

“Good morning,” Anduin murmured as he carefully moved to take the shovel and hoist more coal into the fire, making as little noise as possible. “How is she?”

Wrathion did not raise his head, his glowing red eyes opening and swiveling to meet Anduin’s. He shook his head just slightly, so he did not bump against the whelp.

“I was thinking I could take her from you for today,” Anduin said, nudging the coals to encourage the flames to take. “And give you a chance to rest properly.”

Wrathion watched as Anduin rose to his feet, tugging on the harness, which happened to be just big enough to cradle a small human child or a newly hatched dragon whelp.

“ **I suppose it would be good for her to see some of the world outside.** ” 

Wrathion shifted into his mortal form, kneeling to awkwardly cradle the whelp between his palms. She growled in protest: a small, weak noise that didn’t last long and her eyes fluttered open to watch as Wrathion stepped over the rock-lined ledge.

With some adjustments, Anduin secured the whelp in the sling, her small, warm body pressed against his chest, claws digging into the front of his outermost tunic. He had layered several tunics on top of each other with a pad held in place by bandage gauze to dissipate the heat from her fire-warmed scales. It wasn’t so unfamiliar from cradling any of the babies he had helped baptize at the Cathedral of the Holy Light.

The whelp made a small noise in complaint when the warmth from Wrathion’s hands disappeared, turning her head to look up at him with watering, pleading eyes. Wrathion hesitated, a mournful look on his face, laying his first and second finger on top of her head. She bumped upward to nuzzle into him, opening her mouth again to let out a weak cry.

“We must find some way for her to eat soon.” Wrathion’s slitted eyes were cupped by dark bruises, the scales on his cheeks prominent. He did not have the energy to even hide his horns, curving away from opposite sides of his skull. “She is already dehydrated.”

Anduin reached out to cup Wrathion’s cheek, brushing his thumb over the ridges of scales. “I’m going to take her for a ride down to the farm. Why don’t you go up to our nest and sleep for a while. If you’re feeling up for it, you should stretch your wings, too. Spending hour after hour in this darkness cannot be good for anyone, even a dragon.”

With a resigned nod, Wrathion made to turn towards the Rookery door. Anduin caught his chin and leaned in to kiss him fully on the mouth, careful not to crush the whelp between them. 

The whelp came to accept Anduin as a sufficient substitute for the comfort of Wrathion’s presence and stayed quiet during the long walk through the lair to the outer landing. A dusting of snow covered the old black and white marble tiles from the previous night, but the first rays of the sun could be seen from behind the northern mountain range and Anduin wondered if it would melt before noon. She still seemed too tired to show more than a mild curiosity about Zephyr, who bobbed and twisted her head from side to side to give the whelp a stern glance with one sharp eye, then the other before Anduin moved to fit her with a saddle and reins. The whelp did not protest when, once seated, Anduin buttoned the flaps of his coat over her, just enough to cover where her head rested against his chest and leave room for air while shielding her from the wind. 

The Burning Steppes were beautiful in their half-frosted state, distant pools and rivers of lava glowing warm and orange-red in between long patches of frosted terrain white-blue in the shadow of the pre-dawn light. Smoke was rising from the farmhouse chimney, the window panes yellow with candlelight. Arlios waved to Anduin on his trek to the barn, a thermos in hand, leaving a neat trail of black footprints in the frost.

Left, Tynnair, and the sin’dorei brothers Solisril and Lunaril all looked up from the table, where Right was serving a second helping of some kind of potato, onion, carrot, and greasy worg meat scramble. Left almost got up from her chair at the sight of the whelp, still comfortable in the sling as Anduin unbuttoned his coat. “Come by the fire, quickly.”

The whelp didn’t seem to care much for the change in environment and sniffed the fresh air with only mild interest. When Anduin stepped into the intense heat coming off the roaring fire in the large hearth, though, she made a small, light sound that was almost a chirp. This event drew an almost cooing noise from Left as she leaned forward, ponytail falling over one shoulder and rugged hands planted on her knees.

“How is the little one doing today?” Left asked, a smile tugging at her fangs as the whelp swiveled her head around to stare. “Still uninterested in eating? We need to teach you how to _bite_ like orc babies do.”

When Left said the word _bite_ , she bared her fangs and made a chomping motion in the open air with her mouth as she held her yellow-green finger close to the whelp’s snout. The whelp only sniffed it, her own stubborn mouth closed shut.

“I wanted to trouble you for something,” Anduin said.

As the priest made his humble request, Right and Left’s eyes both blew wide open. They exchanged stares, holding each other’s gaze for a moment.

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Right declared, finally, her voice flat as she turned back to Anduin.

Left rubbed her chin, studying the whelp who was growing drowsy from the comfort of the heat and the motion of Anduin rubbing her tucked-up wings and back through the cloth wraps of the sling. Her tail twitched in the air.

“It’s worth trying,” Left granted, already turning towards the kitchen. “At least it’s unlikely that it would cause any harm.”

“Do you have the other supplies that you would need?” Right asked.

Anduin nodded. “Yes. I found a vendor in Shadowforge City when I went to deliver a letter a day or so ago. I intended to use this method as a last resort.”

Left opened the door of the ice box and took out a thick bottle, sealed with a steel screw-top cap. She handed it to Anduin, who slipped it into the small leather satchel he kept by his side.

“Get that to Blackrock quickly,” Left instructed. “Before it spoils.”

Right sighed but her face softened at the sight of Left leaning forward to plant a small, delicate kiss on the whelp’s ridged brow. The whelp growled, a low and annoyed sound, to show her thanks.

“Good luck.”

* * *

Wrathion jolted awake, his body unfurling from the tight ball he had coiled into in the moss nest in his bedchamber at the peak of Blackrock Mountain. The breeze from his wings rustled the ivy growing on the stone walls and the fine woven tapestry decorated with Dark Iron runes and patterns, at its center an embroidered dragon curled around a willow tree that wept beneath the embrace of a naaru. The memory of the nightmare had already begun to fade from the edges of consciousness; Wrathion could only remember traces of an infinite desert of gray-black sand beneath a frightening blue sky devoid of stars or distant worlds. Tendrils of the Void had eaten away at his skin and scales as he walked, his wings ripped and unable to lift him into the empty, cold air.

The dragon shifted into his mortal form and dressed in a simple wine-purple tunic and black pants, touching the silver rings to ensure they were still around his neck on their fragile human-forged chain. He went barefoot down the spiral stairs into the main living quarters of the lair, seeking out the lingering traces of Anduin’s scent combined with the whelp’s. He found them both in the kitchen, the whelp seated on top of the wooden cutting board on the island Arlios had constructed in the center of the room near the sink, oven, and ice box. She was sitting back almost on her haunches, neck extended fully outward, sucking at a rubber nipple attached to a glass bottle filled with creamy white milk that Anduin held in his hand. Her eyes were open and staring up with a look of utter adoration into Anduin’s, who looked back down with a gentle, shy smile on his face. Neither of them noticed Wrathion, who stood transfixed in the doorway. They were both framed in the halo of the mid-morning light drifting in from the tall windows in the mountain wall, Anduin’s blond hair alight. 

When Anduin finally turned to look at him, Wrathion felt an utterly overwhelming sense of relief coil in his chest. Tension that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in his shoulders unknotted, his posture sagging for a moment. He approached the pair on quiet, cautious footsteps, afraid of doing anything that could potentially break whatever spell had come over the whelp. 

“ _You_ are supposed to be sleeping,” Anduin teased.

The whelp’s dark brown eyes flickered over to investigate what had drawn Anduin’s interest. Her face lit up in recognition and she turned her head to face him completely with an excited sound in the back of her throat, but when she lost purchase on the nipple, she immediately turned back to latch onto it, the milk dribbling down her chin as she resumed drinking at an even more vigorous pace than before, as if to make up for the seconds lost.

“...how?” was all Wrathion found he could say.

Anduin nodded towards the counter, where an old journal lay open, a smooth stone keeping the pages held down. “My mother had difficulty producing milk for me when I was a baby, so she used goat’s milk, something that’s commonly done in Westfall. She wrote down her method for warming and filling the bottles in there.”

Wrathion stepped up to the journal, red eyes flickering over the unfamiliar loops of handwriting. His first instinct was to remove the stone and begin to flip through the delicate pages, but something about the journal also made him not want to disturb it. A strange, unfamiliar aura permeated the ink and leather, so faint he wasn’t sure if a mortal would even notice.

“She had too few friends in court and far too many enemies; she thought it was too dangerous to ask for help with feeding the crown prince from someone who had the means,” Anduin explained, a fond smile on his face as he returned to watching the whelp as she sucked. “She would take me down to the stables at all hours of the day and night to find a goat in the Keep’s stables to milk herself. The servants were certainly very amused by the sight of their queen squatting on a milking stool with me on her back, but they helped keep her and me shielded from other nobles’ prying eyes.”

Wrathion let out an interested hum and tore his eyes away from the strange writing, digesting this information and staring at Anduin. It had not once occurred to him to study how mortals fed their young. It had not once occurred to him that a hungry whelp would or could ever turn down fresh meat.

“And this worked?” he heard himself ask, the words spilling forth before he could stop them. “You suffered no ill effects?”

“Er, no,” Anduin faltered, glancing down at himself as if to make sure. “I seem to have turned out just fine...I think.”

Wrathion continued to stare, stroking and tugging at his beard as he contemplated this.

“Would you like to feed her?” Anduin asked, gesturing to the bottle.

“No,” Wrathion said, quickly. He composed himself, feeling the blood rush to heat his cheeks from Anduin’s raised brow. “I would rather leave this task to your more than capable hands.”

Anduin burst into laughter, startling the whelp.

“Wrathion, it really wasn’t that hard,” Anduin scoffed as he soothed the whelp by running a finger across the scales beneath her chin and coaxing the bottle back into her mouth. “Burning her with the hot milk by accident isn’t even possible, so it was a difficult task to fail, really.”

Wrathion looked to the whelp, who turned her gaze to meet his as she worked on sucking the last of the milk with long, greedy gulps. Her warm brown eyes were wide and curious, as if her first taste of earthly sustenance were giving her a kind of clarity. He reached out with his mind the way he had done in the shell and made a gentle inquiry. Silence met him, broken by the whelp’s physical chittering complaint when Anduin took the empty bottle away.

“That’s enough for now, I think,” Anduin slung a towel over one shoulder and scooped up the whelp. She could almost fit completely in his large palms, if not for her spindly wings and long tail. “Your father would never forgive me if I made you sick.”

The whelp continued to make tentative chirps which Anduin humored by returning his own quiet soothing sounds and clicks with his tongue. She reached up with a hand for his stubble-covered chin to grasp it with her claw. Wrathion felt a confounding pang of uncertainty roil through him as he watched them together.

“I think I’ll take her upstairs to the nest to keep an eye on her, make sure she settles down and stomachs the milk properly.” Anduin gently pried the claws from his jaw and shifted the whelp to instead rest with her head and chest on his shoulder over the towel, keeping her nestled and secure in the crook of one arm as he rubbed a hand over her back in the other. “If that’s alright with you?”

Wrathion blinked in surprise, taking a moment to respond. “Yes. Yes, of course.” 

“I’ll bring her right back down to the Rookery if I feel her temperature drop,” Anduin promised, a smile creeping across his face as the whelp began to nuzzle into his collarbone. “You ought to eat something yourself, it’s been weeks since you’ve left the mountain for any reason.”

Wrathion realized that he could not, in fact, remember the last time he had gone hunting to feed himself or his brother. He could feel every knot from each tense, unused muscle coiled tightly in his limbs, the phantoms of his wings threatening to burst from his shoulder blades. It seemed as if an eternity had passed in the days since he last took measurements of the unhatched egg. The rocky walls of the small cozy kitchen were now unbearably stifling.

“...I think I will do so now.” The dragon’s voice was distant, words spoken more as an affirmation to himself than anyone else.

Anduin gave Wrathion a kiss on the cheek, wisps of his blond bangs tickling Wrathion’s nose, before he turned to leave, singing a song about a goat who was escaping from his farmer to freedom in the mountains. The whelp turned her head, setting her small, pointed chin on top of both taloned paws clinging to the towel slung over Anduin’s shoulder. She locked her round, maroon-eyed gaze with Wrathion’s uncertain, glowing red one and stared until Anduin turned the corner and they both disappeared into the warm shadows of the corridor. Wrathion was left alone in the kitchen to stand and contemplate both the empty glass bottle on the counter and the stranger’s handwriting on the old journal pages.

* * *

The taste of the southern Eastern Kingdom’s long and glorious summer hung in the air behind the cool wind that whipped across the barren fields of Blacktalon’s claimed land. Wrathion flew low across the farm, slowing to appreciate the precious spread of green jutting up from the rocky soil. Ebyssian’s shaman magic hung thick in the air, concentrated grounded earthen energy saturating the topsoil and potent in the markings painted into the stone barrier that kept the cattle from straying. Tall, wooden totems now guarded the young pasture in addition to Blacktalon agents. They were carved from trees Ebyssian had harvested from Dun Morogh and decorated with paint the elder dragon had made by grounding up various minerals from all over the Burning Steppes. A nervous chorus rose from the five cows as they began to stir beneath the shadow of Wrathon’s wings as it passed over the fences. Left waved in greeting from her post by the gate. Smoke rose from the chimney of the stone farmhouse, now with a wreath woven from boughs and pine cones taken from a forest in Redridge hanging on the red-painted door. Right sat in a rocking chair on the front porch, polishing a crossbow.

The sun disappeared behind a passing cloud as Wrathion scaled the side of Blackrock Mountain. His wings kicked up a fine layer of dust and silt as he landed besides Nefarian’s broken throne, careful not to crush the worg carcass beneath his claws. An exhale escaped Wrathion’s lips, hot, laden with smoke. It was swallowed by the late morning air, the sun warming the exposed marble tiles. The dragon shifted his quarry into his mouth and padded through the front hall, his nostrils flaring as he took in the familiar scents in the hall. Water streamed from the mouths of the dragon sculptures that guarded the main stairwells, into small pools glittering with minerals in the light that shone through the stained glass windows embedded in the outer mountain wall above the entrance. Jaina Proudmoore’s grounding rune glowed with a faint lavender arcane light in the center of the floor as Wrathion lumbered past.

He carried the worg into the kitchen, where he set the carcass down on top of the butcher’s slab in the corner, where an assortment of carving tools and a leather apron hung from nails drilled into the stone mountain wall. In a rustle of silk fabric, Wrathion shifted, the bangles on his wrist clinking together as he reached into a nearby cupboard to pluck a small paper package filled with a chilling enchantment that would prevent the carcass from decaying for another few hours until Anduin returned from his morning ride to skin and divide the meat from bone.

A strange scent hit Wrathion all at once as he brushed the last traces of the dust from his fingers. An uneasy chill tightened his chest and his curled-toe leather boots made no noise as he strode from the kitchen and into the hall. He followed the essence back towards the entrance where he had just come from. A more familiar one now mingled with it and a black, discerning feeling spurned his steps. Soon, quiet voices echoed off the stone and metal walls just past the lower central staircase. Wrathion turned and moved beneath the raised gate of the Vault of the Shadowflame.

At the top of the descent, Wrathion froze in place midway from one step to another. Down by the base of the staircase, framed in the strange glow of the channeled magma river that heated the chamber, Alexstrasza stood in her mortal quel’dorei form, dressed in a crimson romper decorated with golden chains and clasps, a magenta gemstone sitting at the base of her throat from its setting in a solid gold band. She seemed to be speaking quietly to a mortal child with a warm, umber complexion, of two or three years of age, sitting in her arms. One of the child’s arms clung to the Queen of Dragon’s shoulder for balance, the other hand curled close to her mouth. When the child turned her head, the tips of two small, obsidian horns peaked out from the crown of dense, raven curls that fell past her small shoulders. Two large maroon eyes peered up at Wrathion with an achingly uncertain expression on her round face. Above her, Alexstrasza’s passive visage smiled like an unrelenting sun.

Wrathion found he could not move, an ice-like terror keeping even words stuck on his tongue. His two hearts began to beat louder and louder in his chest, an all-consuming roar rising in his ears like the cries of...

“Nyxondra!”

The girl’s head whipped around in the direction of the sound, almost a beat quicker than Alexstrasza’s. With a loud, shrill shriek and a burst of raw draconic transformation energy that startled both Wrathion and the queen, the small whelp launched herself at the mortal who had limped through the doorway, extending his arm expectantly. Anduin laughed as the dragon whelp collided with his bare arm, the momentum sending him pivoting halfway around. He quickly recovered and caught her, scooping her so she was cradled to his chest with her wings tucked in by her sides. The human looked as if he had just gotten out of bed, his blond hair roughly combed and loose around his shoulders, dressed in a short-sleeved sleep tunic and shorts, exposing his prosthesis and the scars on his left leg.

“There you are, princess,” Anduin teased, running his fingers across the softer scales on her round belly. The whelp shrieked with laughter and squirmed, claws swatting to grip his hand as her tail rippled against his stomach. “I was wondering where you’d run off to. It’s time for lunch.”

“Just one moment,” Alextrasza called, the golden bands on her great charcoal horns catching the firelight as she raised her chin into the air. Her hand reached out in a commanding gesture, claws striking together in a crisp snap. “I am not finished speaking to her.”

“Forgive me, Your Majesty, this cannot wait,” Anduin replied smoothly over his shoulder as he adjusted his grip on the still giggling and chirping whelp, already halfway out the door.

“I said wait. _Consort_.”

But Anduin was already gone. The two dragons were left alone in the chamber with the sound of the lava flow bubbling around the perimeter and steam hissing in the walls.

In the silence that followed, Wrathion pulled together the inner fortitude to inch down one step. Then another. Soon he was descending the stairs to his home, his own bearded chin lifted in the air with an heir of confidence he had practically snatched in the wake of his mate’s boldness, which had stunned the queen into almost shock.

“Your Majesty, please forgive my prime and only consort, human hearing is so...inadequate…” Wrathion apologized with a flick of his fingers, as if he were brushing off an itching insect from the backs of his long claws. “And the voices of the mountain have only worsened his ability to hear commands from a distance.”

He did not flinch under the golden gaze directed towards him. Each step brought him closer to the electric, warm atmosphere developing the red dragon’s mortal form. The dark brown hairs on the backs of Wrathion’s forearms stood on end.

“I do not believe it is his hearing that adversely affects him,” Alexstrasza said, though her voice was calm, merely curious. “This is the former human king, correct?”

“Yes,” Wrathion confirmed, his hearts nearly in his throat, the gold tips of his boots silent but solid on each step. “The last king of Stormwind.”

Alexstrasza made a humming sound in the back of her throat. She tossed her head, the soft tresses of her copper-red hair spilling across one bare shoulder in an unnatural arc that was uncanny in its perfection. The perturbations of strands too refined, too orderly in the way they slid off one another. Wrathion swayed, tearing his gaze away, attempting to blink the golden aura from the edges of his vision.

“You should be taking a firmer hand with your consorts,” she said as shadows swam in strange arcs across the walls. “Trust when I say that you do not want your first to develop strong feelings of authority.”

“I will see that he is informed of this indiscretion,” Wrathion asserted, his voice firm. He now stood at the base of the stairs, almost within arm’s reach of the other dragon. She had turned her gaze away to peer thoughtfully into the corridor where Anduin had taken the whelp, leaving Wrathion to bask in the relief of her averted attention.

“You are quite fortunate, Earth-Warder.” Alexstrasza’s voice had softened, frightening in its vulnerability. “I have not seen a whelp that young and small in quite some time.”

Any measure of confidence Wrathion had snatched in his descent evaporated like mist beneath the afternoon sun. He clasped his hands behind his back, digging nails into his palms and setting his teeth grinding edge-to-edge as he squared his jaw.

“Fortune has never smiled upon me, Your Majesty,” he said, eyes flickering upward in what may have been an ill-shrouded parody of charm. “Still, one must make do with what one has been given.”

Alexstrasza stood before a grate that overlooked the pit where he had once stripped scales from the corpse of a dragon who had once called herself Onyxia. He had sewn them into shroud after shroud, adorning the shoulders of Anduin’s champions with stitches and enchantments and equations of prayers that their blades would reach the edge of an Old God’s empire and cut the rot from a kingdom. He tried to imagine the weight of them on his own shoulders, the comfort and the confidence such garments of protection could bring. Azeroth seemed to be tipping up on her axis, as if the Titan had turned over in her restless slumber.

“I only wish Your Majesty had sent a messenger to herald your coming,” Wrathion lamented, tightening the grip of his clasped hands, still hidden behind his back, as he took another step towards the other dragon. “I would have preferred to prepare a welcome befitting of a distinguished visitor from the Red Dragonflight.”

Alexstrasza continued to stare down the corridor, for a moment, as if she had not heard him. Wrathion was preparing to make a sound, recite her title, anything to draw her attention when she whipped her head around. The desperation in her mortal expression sent a chill tearing up Wrathion’s spine, as if he had plunged into the grip of a frozen ocean.

“I should like to speak with her again.” A plea tinged the edges of Alexstrasza’s voice as she continued. “I should like to examine her. Please, Earth-Warder, was that her name that your consort spoke? _Nyxondra_?”

A fresh rush of blood flowed to Wrathion’s head and the room began to spin as his mortal sight blackened for a moment. A sharp retort perched on the tip of his tongue when a third booming voice filled the chamber.

“ **Your Majesty**!” Ebyssian’s heavy footsteps caused the metal plates beneath them to tremble as he made his way across the railing around the chamber, from the entrance to the vault he had claimed as his personal workshop. He sounded as if he were greeting an old friend who had come to visit from Highmountain. “ **What a pleasant surprise. You’ve picked an excellent time of year to visit the Burning Steppes.** ”

Alexstrasza’s head at last turned to look away from Wrathion with a small, resistant jerk, as if she were breaking free of some spell. A small, gracious smile crossed her lips as she acknowledged the elder dragon’s approach with a slight tilt of her head.

“Ebyssian,” she greeted. “My thanks. I have come to see how your brood is progressing. I heard news of the miracle that more black dragon whelps hatched.”

“ **Yes, indeed** ,” Ebyssian rumbled, coming to pause beside the two dragons, towering above even Alexstrasza’s considerably tall mortal form. “ **We are quite proud, the Titans and our Ancestors have surely looked kindly upon us. But, forgive my impudence, perhaps it would be more comfortable for everyone if we brought our brood to Wyrmrest at a scheduled time, to introduce them formally to the entire Accord.** ”

Wrathion held his breath, blood continuing to pound in his mortal ears as he waited for a reaction. Alexstrasza took a moment to consider this information, the smile fading from her frown. She looked from one brother to the other, the eddies of life magic between them tingling like a static electricity.

Finally, the dragon queen turned to Wrathion. “I see my presence is an inconvenience.”

A jolt of adrenaline ran through Wrathion, as if lightning had struck him in the spine while in flight, and he found himself matching Ebyssian’s draconic smile with his mortal mouth.

“I’m terribly sorry, Your Majesty, on behalf of the Black Dragonflight, allow me to say that we are, frankly, embarrassed to be so ill-prepared,” Wrathion admitted, showing his teeth and tightening his knuckles. “Alas, not only do we have just a single consort between us to assist with maintaining both our affairs, but you’ll find that this mountain contains few comforts that are befitting of a visit from the esteemed members of the Red Dragonflight.”

It took Alexstrasza an eternity to consider this, during which she swept her gaze around the Vault of the Shadowflame, lingering on the iron chandelier from which chains and hooks once hung.

“Very well,” she conceded at last. “I did not realize that the Black Dragonflight’s situation was so...perilous. Perhaps we can discuss finding a suitable place to raise your brood when you come before the Accord.”

At this, Wrathion faltered.

“ **Your Majesty,** ” Ebyssian’s voice boomed across the chamber. “ **I will escort you to the entrance, if you will allow it.** ”

The warmth had faded from Alexstrasza’s golden eyes, leaving a light like an unpleasant polished brass. “I will allow it. Expect my missive soon, Earth-Warder.”

Wrathion unstuck his tongue from the roof of his mouth, his voice dangerous in the intensity of its anger. “You have earned my strictest attention, Your Majesty.”

Alexstrasza ascended the stairs that would take her back to the entrance in the Broken Hall with Ebyssian stalking close behind. Each soft click of her delicate brown leather heels echoed in the chamber, followed by Ebyssian’s padded, thundering ones and scraping claws. Wrathion paced the length of the platform, listening. He unclasped his hands and when he looked down at them, he found that his nails had torn grooves so deep they had drawn blood. He wiped them clean with an embroidered kerchief, his fingers shaking so badly that it took a few tugs to remove the small piece of tailored fabric from his pocket. The moment Ebyssian and Alexstrasza departed from the chamber, he sprinted towards the corridor into the living quarters of the Lair, taking the stairs two at a time.

The faint smell of smoke wafted through the sweltering halls which Wrathion followed to the kitchen. He found Anduin standing at the counter with the fresh hunk of red meat he had taken from the ice box, a small fire burning gently below a steel pot suspended over the hearth. Nyx sat on top beside the cutting board, crouched with her tail swishing behind her, her head held low like a hunting cat. She watched with great intent as the human sliced the meat into smaller, jagged pieces.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t want to wait for me to cook them with some pepper in oil?” Anduin was asking the whelp as Wrathion approached. “I was thinking of trying to make a cream sauce out of a little broth again, I need to practice watching it so it doesn’t burn. And some broccoli or spinach on the side…”

The whelp shook out her head as if she were dislodging an insect that had landed on one of her horned nubs, brows contorting as she wrinkled her nostrils in distaste. Anduin took a smaller hunk of red meat between his fingers and held it out to her. She snatched it up between her fangs, making an excited growling noise as she tore into it. The human’s smile faded when he turned to meet Wrathion’s gaze.

Wrathion was certain that his face looked stricken, but he was unable to do anything to it that would lessen the magnitude of his uncertainty. “Is she hurt?”

Anduin looked down at the whelp, who lifted her head to chirp a greeting at Wrathion, a small strand of red dangling from the front of her mouth. “No, not at all, she seems fine. Just hungry, as usual. Is Alexstrasza still here?”

Wrathion shook his head, rubbing his fingers across the dense dark brown beard on his chin. Anduin put down the steel cleaver and side-stepped to pump water from the sink.

“You’re shaking,” the priest noted over his shoulder as he scrubbed his hand clean. “Wrathion, please, have a seat. I can nearly hear your hearts beating from here.”

Wrathion shook his own head with more vigor than his whelp had at the suggestion of vegetables and strode across the room to stare out one of the tall, ceiling-high windows. Anduin had opened them as far as they would go to let in the summer breeze. They overlooked the northern part of the Burning Steppes, the horizon blue and cloudless. There were too many crevices in the mountain range, too many high peaks that would make it too easy to hide something large, winged and airborne.

“How did she know?”

At this, Anduin’s expression dropped as he dried his hands on the towel folded over the side of the basin. “Kalecgos, possibly?”

“He wouldn’t betray such information unless he was directly interrogated.” Wrathion shook his head again, curls falling back from his shoulders. “And he would have warned us. Perhaps...perhaps Merithra sensed something when she came to assist Ebyssian with enriching the soil. It’s an ill kept secret that she’s become quite close to the dragon queen, personally, since the Dreamer’s passing.”

Wrathion turned to meet the sound of Anduin’s uneven approaching footsteps on the warm stone floor. The sight of the former king’s familiar, serious expression stirred buried memories of standing across from him at a map-laden table in Stormwind Keep’s war room, delivering information that could be used to formulate some sort of strategy.

“How big is the Red Dragonflight?” Anduin’s voice was similarly direct, but calm. “Roughly?”

Wrathion lifted a hand to his brow, claws running across his temple. “Thousands. Tens of thousands.”

“Are the red dragons coordinated?” Anduin probed. “And do they frequently or infrequently meddle in the affairs of other flights?”

“Of course they do, each dragonflight is needlessly too curious about the affairs of the others.” Wrathion could not hide the impatience from his tone, looking away as if he could direct the blow of his words at the distant wall instead of Anduin himself. “I myself have sent Blacktalon to watch dragons from other flights. This is not your concern, there is nothing you can do to stop them.”

“I am your consort,” Anduin said, deliberately, as he had with any other decree he had ever given from the human throne. “And I am helping you to raise your children…”

“Child,” Wrathion corrected, with more force than he’d intended.

“So far,” Anduin countered without skipping a beat. “There are many more eggs lying dormant in the laboratory.”

“It remains to be seen if I will be ready or able to hatch another one within your lifetime.”

Wrathion choked on the last word, turning his head away, running a hand across his mouth to hide. He felt the warm touch of Anduin’s Light-blessed fingertips, reassuring on his elbow.

“Until then, I will be your consort,” Anduin repeated. “ _Prime_ consort, and so it is prudent for you to inform me of these matters, so that I know what to expect. So that I know how to protect both of you.”

Wrathion looked stunned for a moment.

“ _Protect--?_ ” he raised his voice, the fire in his eyes flaring, a vicious curl of smoke slipping from each nostril. “You are _arrogant_ to presume that your human abilities are such that you could even begin to _interfere_ in the matter, _**Your Majesty**_.”

“ **Did I do something wrong?** ”

Anduin and Wrathion looked across the room at the small whelp, watching them with wide, maroon eyes. The remnants of the meat lay untouched at her feet. Her head was hunched low to the counter, shoulders raised high, and tail coiled tightly around her paws.

“ **No, my dear,** ” Wrathion did his best to temper his draconic as he crossed the floor. He came to rest beside the counter, his hand traveling around the back of the whelp’s small head, cupping her jaw.

“ **She said that she is the queen of all dragonkin.** ” Nyx’s voice was quiet and unsure. “ **And that I must be obedient to her.** ”

Wrathion dropped his hand, taking both of her clawed paws in his mortal hands, pressing his thumbs tightly into the bones he could feel through her scales. “ **If you see her again, you must run away, as far away from her as you can. You are not to obey a single word that she says. Do you understand?** ”

Nyx stared into Wrathion’s gaze. After a moment, she turned uncertainly to look towards Anduin. He managed a small, encouraging smile, even though his brows knitted deep creases into his forehead.

“ **Yes. I understand.** ” Her gaze turned back to meet Wrathion’s. “ **What’s a red dragon?** ”

* * *

In the evening, most halls in Nefarian’s Lair were so dark it would have rendered a human’s eyes blind. Wrathion did not need to bother with a candle or oil lamp as he stepped from his bedchamber, shutting the door behind him. His mortal form was dressed in a sleeveless light gray tunic embroidered with silver moons at the hem and long, dark pants woven from a soft cotton fabric, suitable for comfort and sleep. He stopped in mid-step at the sound of a sudden noise, small claws skittering across the stone floor. His expression softened.

“I see we’re not the only ones still awake at this hour,” he observed out loud in a wry tone of voice to the small dragon whelp crouched in the hall.

Nyx looked up at him, her small obsidian form bathed in the red glow of Wrathon’s gaze. She remained silent, tail swishing behind her. Wrathion hesitated, then knelt down. Even still, his mortal form towered over her, as she was the size of a small cat. He extended his hand, uncurling his fingers. After a moment, she raised her head to meet his palm, nuzzling into it as a small draconic purr vibrated in her chest.

“Was it a nightmare?” he asked, his voice gentle with concern.

Nyx remained still, leaning into his palm. “ **No. I don’t want to sleep.** ”

A small half-laugh hummed in the back of Wrathion’s throat, drawing an offended murmur from the whelp, who froze mid-nuzzle.

“Would you like to accompany me to the kitchen?” he asked. “Since you’re so determined to stay awake?”

After a moment, Nyx nodded and sat on her rear paws, lifting her front ones in expectation of Wrathion wrapping his hands around her waist and lifting her up. Her claws latched onto his shoulder and she hoisted herself on top, sliding beneath his hair so that her long body lay across the back of his warm neck. Her small head peered out close to his cheek while her tail hung across his chest. Wrathion rose to his bare feet and padded down the hall, led by a halo of a soft crimson glow on the floor.

In the kitchen, he pumped water from the sink into a stout iron kettle and hung it from the iron bar that ran over the hearth. With a snap of his fingers, a spark ignited the remnants of wood from the previous day, waiting in the soot-coated grate. A curl of his claws drew the flames higher until they almost caressed the round bottom of the kettle. Somewhere within, heat began to seep into the water.

Wrathion perused the counters, selecting a deep blue-green ceramic cup that had been molded from Dark Iron hands. From a small box in the pantry, he scooped a small handful of dried leaves that smelled of light grass and lemon, guiding them into a fine strainer which he enclosed and set to rest in the bottom of the cup. From another shelf, he retrieved a round vial filled with a thick, glowing white liquid that looked almost lavender in the moonlight and the warm illumination from his eyes.

“ **What are you doing?** ” Nyx asked as she watched from Wrathion’s shoulder.

“Preparing something for Anduin,” Wrathion explained, uncorking the vial and depositing a sparse, measured portion of the potion into the cup. “To help him sleep. Would you like some of the tea?”

“ **No. I don’t like how it smells.** ”

Wrathion chuckled, letting out a sigh. He reached for a small violet-colored paper box on the shelf, the front printed with a familiar emblem of one of Kalecgos’ favorite patisserie shops in Dalaran, offering it in silence. After a moment of consideration, Nyx nodded and Wrathion used a claw to flip open the lid and select a small golden wafer from the pile within, dusted lightly with powdered sugar. He held the sweet lemon shortbread up to Nyx’s mouth and she bit down on the edge, taking it from him. He could feel the occasional crumb train down the front of his tunic, Nyx making quiet, content noises as she nibbled, as he fetched the boiling water from the kettle over the hearth, dousing the flames with a smooth gesture from his open palm. 

With the ceramic cup filled with boiling water and the tea steeping, Wrathion stirred the mixture as he walked back towards the living quarters, using a small spell he directed with the tip of his claw.

“Are you ready to return to your chambers?” the dragon asked.

“ **No.** ”

Wrathion hesitated, listening to the sounds of steam and distant magma shifting in the walls as he walked, like listening to mortal blood thrumming in the valves of a lung.

“If you stay with me, you must help me to soothe Anduin,” Wrathion’s voice was quiet and serious. “Can you do that?”

Nyx nodded, uncertain but determined. “ _ **Yes,**_ **Atya.** ”

Up the spiral stairs again and down the hall, Wrathion placed his palm on the great brass door handle and turned it slowly, pushing the great door open. Inside, his pupils narrowed as he was momentarily blinded by a source of bright, golden-white light radiating from the center of the nest in the middle of the room. Anduin lay on his right side with his back towards them, arms folded tightly over his chest so that the fabric on the back of his sleep shirt was pulled taut over his shoulder blades. He was murmuring some kind of prayer, his voice shaking and weak.

As Wrathion approached the edge of the nest, Nyx crawled down the front of his chest. He was ready to receive her in the crook of his free arm as she shifted into her mortal form, wrapping one arm around his shoulder. She was dressed in a similar tunic and pants to his, her pants a light lemon yellow and tunic a soft shade of light gray.

Wrathion raised his voice, his tone so light it could have been teasing. “It appears someone else is also having difficulty sleeping.”

The prayer stopped and Anduin looked over his shoulder. Wrathion could see now that Anduin was clenching his right wrist in his left hand, holding it near his heart. The human immediately pushed himself up, roughly rubbing the heel of his hand across one eye and then the other.

“Oh,” Anduin murmured, his voice cracked and unfamiliar, brows knitted with worry as he reached up with both hands, cheeks still stained with drying tears. Nyx slipped from her perch in Wrathion’s arm into his waiting grip, settling carefully on his lap. “Oh, no, Nyxondra, sweetheart, did you have a bad dream?”

Nyx shook her head, her dense raven curls flicking as Anduin rubbed his hand up and down her back, Light blooming from his palm. His hands were automatically checking for broken bones or signs of bruising. She seemed uncertain as she studied his face. His expression had softened into one of grave concern, but he was not smiling.

“I’m just awake,” Nyx explained, her cheeks now cupped in his wide palms, the soft golden glow reflected in her large eyes. “I can’t fall asleep.”

Fresh tears shimmered across the surface of Anduin’s eyes and threatened to spill as he made a small, low humming sound in sympathy, stroking the side of her hair from where one of her small horns emerged from the arrangement of tresses. Wrathion eased himself down into the moss behind Anduin, stretching his legs to either side of the human, sliding forward so that his warm chest pressed up against his spine. As he adjusted, his eyes were drawn to the shimmer of golden sparks quietly dissipating into the darkness from the trail of the priest’s fingers as he attempted to heal wounds that were not there. His red gaze flickered briefly across the faded, puckered burn scar that covered Anduin’s right wrist, only just perceptible in the shadows of the bedchamber at night.

“There, now, the Light seems to have no trouble answering your calls to it,” Wrathion declared, reaching over with his free hand to take Nyx’s chin and stroke his thumb across the light dusting of small scales at the contour of her cheek. “I dare say she even looks healthier than she did just a moment ago, well done.”

A quiet giggle burst from Nyx’s throat and she ducked away from his hand in embarrassment, hiding her face behind the curtain of her curly hair. Wrathion reached around and offered the hot ceramic cup, a soothing grassy scent wafting from the surface. Anduin accepted the mug, glancing over his shoulder with a raw look of miserable gratitude.

“What is this?” the priest asked, cupping both large hands around the heated ceramic. Nyx recovered and peered into the cup with mild curiosity, as if she were checking to see if the act of transference had altered the liquid contained within.

“A dwarven white tea, imported from Ironforge,” Wrathion recited, sliding one hand under Anduin’s arm to rest on the human’s chest, leaning in to press his lips briefly against the soft, sleep-rumpled blond hair at the crown of Anduin’s head. “Brewed with the essence of dreamleaf, to help you relax, my dear consort.”

Anduin made a noise of relief as he took another deep, stuttering breath, inhaling the scent of the tea. He pressed his lips to the brim of the cup, flinching at the sharp, boiling heat. “...I’m sorry. I must look ridiculous.”

“Not at all,” Wrathion uttered, his claw tracing a knotted scar on the priest’s arm, right above the elbow. “You’ve most certainly helped me calm down from worse.”

“I have no excuse, no Old God is attempting to pepper my dreams with visions of Azeroth in torment,” Anduin laughed quietly, then managed to take a small sip. “Mmm, this is good. Thank you.”

He turned and leaned to meet Wrathion’s mouth for a brief kiss before settling back, leaning against the Earth-Warder’s chest, groaning in contentment and stretching out his leg as Nyx crawled off to pull a pillow up in the grassy bed beside him. The older dragon leaned in to rest his chin on Anduin’s shoulder 

“How about a story?” Wrathion suggested, running his hand across Anduin’s chest, pausing to feel where the steady human pulse reverberated through the ribs beneath the pads of his fingers.

“I’ve been too old for bedtime stories for a little while now,” Anduin pretended to grouch as he let his weight settle deeper against Wrathion’s, blond eyelashes fluttering.

“How arrogant of you to presume that I was even asking you,” Wrathion returned, his voice equally light and mocking, as he lifted his red gaze to exchange a small, proud smile with Nyx, who returned it shyly.

* * *

Before the first rays of sun broke over the mountains on the distant horizon, Wrathion rose to the shadowy gray light pouring in through the bedchamber’s tall, open windows. The cool night air had begun to give way to the promise of a warm summer’s day on the Burning Steppes. Anduin was still deep in sleep, curled against Wrathion’s chest with his arms wrapped around a pillow, Nyx coiled in a small ball near his head with her tail covering her nose. Wrathion leaned over to touch his lips to Anduin’s cheek. The priest’s eyelashes fluttered, his breathing paused for just a moment too long, and Wrathion realized that Anduin was only pretending to be unconscious, as if he were not yet ready to face the day. 

Worry tugged at the corner of Wrathion’s mind, but he let his consort be and lay a second kiss across Nyx’s ridged forehead before he rose to his bare feet and dressed. A light rain struck against the windows, filling the chamber with the sweet, fresh scent of summer when a breeze pushed through. Wrathion stood for a moment near them to contemplate the small, damp dots collecting on the edge of the stone floor. Before he left the room, he ventured into the bathroom and opened the small wooden cabinet, filled mostly with human toiletries and indulgences but also first aid supplies and boxes of medicine. He selected a vial filled with a light blue potion and left it within easy reach in the green moss near where Anduin lay.

As Wrathion approached the broken hall, he heard a familiar skittering noise, approaching claws scrabbling on the stone tiles behind him. Wrathion turned to find Nyx running to catch up with him, her loud huffing breaths echoing around the halls.

“No, my dear,” Wrathion said, turning around and looking down at the small whelp at the toes of his boots, who gazed expectantly up at him. “You know you must stay inside the mountain until I return.”

Nyx made an angry huffing noise, her wings unfurling and body puffing up. “ **I want to go with you! You never bring me anymore!** ”

“And I certainly miss your company,” Wrathion continued, his voice level but tense in the face of her rising cry, his brows knitting together. “But I cannot take you out until I’ve ensured that the Burning Steppes are safe.”

“ **I don’t wait to wait!** ” Nyx raised herself onto her haunches, her claws reaching for his knees. “ **It’s safe for _you_ to go!**”

“It isn’t.” Wrathion bent over, prying each small claw from the fabric, his voice more incensed than before. “You must stay here with Anduin. Depending on what I find, I might be able to take you for a flight later--”

“ **I don’t _WANT_ to stay with _ANDUIN!_** ” The whelp was howling now as she squirmed to wrench her paws from Wrathion’s hands, the scales over her chest glowing with a strange light, as if something within was heating up. “ **I want to stay with _you!_** ”

“You _must not_.”

Wrathion managed not to wince at the loud, guttural scream that tore from the whelp’s small mouth. She hopped back and forth across the width of the hall with an unrestrained furor, the spined nub at the end of her tail scraping against the floor. Small spurts of heat emitted from her body and sparks flew from her mouth. Each time she jumped into the air she spread her wings and attempted to flap, but it did nothing to keep her from landing back down again with the full force of her body weight.

“ _Be gentle with Anduin today!_ ” Wrathion’s voice, though shouting, was barely audible over the whelp’s screeches. “ _He will not be feeling well because of the rain!_ ”

He turned his back and struck out towards the Broken Hall, hands tucked into the pockets of his pants. Nyx did not follow, throwing herself on her back and kicking at the air as she wailed in despair.

The cool drops hissed as they struck Wrathion’s scales, searing with the acceleration of his anger-fueled body heat, and bounced off the membrane of his sunset orange wings. He made several passes around Blackrock Mountain, frantic red eyes sweeping over every crevice and rockface, attempting to check each contour against the despairingly complex structure in his scattered memory. Each shadow of uncertainty added fuel to the burning frustration in his chest. When Wrathion was somewhat satisfied that there were no strange entities skulking about in the damp, soot-soaked mud, he flew north with great, powerful thrusts of his wings. The membrane cracked in the damp air. His long, slender dark body cut through the sheets of increasingly heavy rain. The seed of worry in the bowels of his gut blossomed into a dark bloom. It took him a few hours to make the slow loop, almost to the border of Dun Morogh. Even as he searched, dissatisfaction gripped the internal churning of his gut. The Burning Steppes were impossibly wide, it would take a single dragon most of the hours of the day to even begin to scour the north-western corner, nevermind the rest of the region.

Ebyssian was waiting at the peak of the mountain, his great body lounging across the south-western ledge, gaze pointed towards Elwynn in the south. Rain ran in great streams across his body and down his beard. Wrathion came to roost just below him, the weight of his large feet causing a small boulder to dislodge and roll down the mountain. A curse tore from Wrathion’s throat as he stumbled.

“ **Good afternoon, brother,** ” Ebyssian rumbled, the scales at the corners of his eyes crinkling as he watched him settle. “ **How are you enjoying the weather?** ”

Wrathion shook out his entire body from the tip of his tail to his head. “ **It’s lovely. Earth Mother willing, the farm will not be washed away.** ”

Ebyssian made a small noise in agreement, leaning over the ledge to press his forehead briefly against his brothers’.

“ **The northern region was clear,** ” Wrathion murmured. “ **Perhaps they’ve gone.** ”

Ebyssian remained silent for a moment. 

“ **There were at least two in the south,** ” he said. “ **They retreated to the east when I approached. They did not attempt to hide.** ”

Wrathion jerked his head to the side, black smoke and sparks pouring from his nostrils as he exhaled.

“ **We must speak with Queen Thaurissan,** ” Ebyssian said.

“ **She is already aware,** ” Wrathion replied. “ **The Dark Iron patrol has noticed the presence of red dragons in the area. How could they not.** ”

The roving boulder reached the bottom of the mountain and was swallowed by the steam rising from the great lava lake that ran around the base. Ebyssian lifted a great wing, unfolding it across his brother’s settling form to shield him from the rain.

“ **Perhaps we should seek council from Kalecgos,** ” Ebyssian suggested. “ **Surely the Blue Dragonflight could offer advice.** ”

Wrathion just shook his head. He continued to glare at the distant horizon, gray with the passing storm. In the distance, he could almost make out the ocean, rocked by waves.

Returning to the solace inside the mountain, Wrathion dried off, steam hissing furiously into the open air of the Broken Hall in the wake of a surge of his body heat. He shifted into his mortal form, the flat heels of his curl-toe boots clicking off the tiles as he wandered the living quarters until he sensed a familiar scent in the library. Anduin was sitting deep into the plush back of the most comfortable armchair in the room with his bare foot stretched out to rest on top of a small ottoman. His blond hair draped freely across his broad shoulders and he had dressed in a loose, cream linen tunic and soft, navy pants that he sometimes wore when sleeping. His crutches and a single, large brown-leather loafer were piled on the floor beside the chair. Nyx was sitting still in his lap, her head resting on his collarbone, dark raven curls pushed up across his shoulder and chest. Anduin’s listless gaze was turned towards the rain tapping at the window, his chin in his hand, the other holding a book open for Nyx across both their legs that neither of them were reading. The young dragon whelp was also despondent, her small mortal fingers tracing the border of the star ruby pendant that hung from a golden chain around Anduin’s neck.

A small sense of warm calm washed over Wrathion as he stood back, taking a moment to observe the quiet scene. The fear had spent itself for the moment and he only wanted to be concerned with the comfort of his consort and his strange, almost dream-like, contentment. A small smirk crossed Wrathion’s face and he stepped forward.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a melancholy sight,” the dragon sat at the edge of the ottoman, careful not to jostle Anduin’s ankle. “Tell me, what tragedy could have possibly happened while I was away?”

Nyx glanced over at Wrathion. Her deep maroon eyes narrowed and her frown deepened before she turned to bury her face in Anduin’s collar. A stifled grunt and a wince of pain eased into a crooked smile as Anduin took his hand from his chin and wrapped his arm around to rub Nyx’s back.

“We both just had a bad morning, I suppose,” Anduin’s smile faded as he saw Wrathion’s face. “They’re still here?”

Wrathion met Anduin’s gray-blue gaze and nodded.

“Perhaps we should go before the Accord to confront Alexstrasza or one of her emissaries directly,” Anduin suggested, his fingers idly patting the ends of Nyx’s springing curls. “Surely the other dragonflights would object to such blatant disrespect for our flight’s territory.”

Wrathion exhaled, faint smoke curling and catching the red light from his gaze. “Life is the Red Dragonflight’s domain, and a new dragon life perhaps most of all. They will argue that it is their right to have some oversight.”

“Do all of them know the history of what’s been done?” Anduin pressed. “Is the Red Dragonflight’s history of experimentation on black dragons common knowledge in the other flights? Surely Nozdormu and Merithra would be sympathetic.”

“The Red Dragonflight would most likely counter by reminding the Accord of the list of horrors committed by the Black Dragonflight,” Wrathion sighed, closing his eyes. “And I am afraid those are more egregious.”

“Actions committed under the influence of Old God corruption,” Anduin pointed out, his voice growing louder and harsher. “Which the Dreamer herself succumbed to, just as Neltharion did, but I’m sure the Green Dragonflight isn’t living under the same surveillance.”

Wrathion ran his fingers across his beard, stroking the strands at his chin to taper into a finer point. His eyes were fixed on a frayed thread near the seam of Anduin’s knee. “I simply do not know, my dear, it is a contentious topic. The Red Dragonflight is currently the largest of all the flights and unused to their authority being challenged. Perhaps it would be prudent for me to pay a visit to Wyrmrest, to at least remind them that I…”

“ _NO! YOU CAN’T GO!_ ”

Anduin flinched and Wrathion startled. Nyx was sitting up, her eyes wide and hands balled into tight fists as she stared at Wrathion. The temperature in the air rose around them as her body heat increased, an eerie glow rising in her throat.

“ _WHAT IF YOU DON’T COME BACK?!_ ”

Nyx burst into a loud, long wail. She began to sob with a violent furor that shook her entire small, mortal body and caused every curl on her head to shake. Anduin’s eyes blew open as he sat up, his foot dropping from the ottoman and slapping against the floor with the tumbling pages of the book as he attempted to soothe her with gentle words and a hand on her back. Wrathion found himself unable to move, every muscle frozen in shock. He was unable to think of anything to do but watch as a warm, golden-white glow rose from Anduin’s palm and enveloped the whelp’s chest and back. Halos of light glittered across the upholstery of the armchair.

Almost as quickly as Nyx had begun to cry, she stopped, trailing off into stuttering breaths under Anduin’s instruction to breathe. Large tears continued to quietly roll down her cheeks but she looked calmer, the anger lines erased from her brow. She crawled from Anduin’s lap with care, as if she knew that a careless kick would worsen the pain in his fractured bones, and into Wrathion’s. She pressed herself flat against his chest and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck as if she wanted to absorb as much of his warmth as she could, though her own skin felt hot to the touch, like a mortal struck with fever.

Wrathion caught Anduin’s eye and the priest stifled a laugh at the dragon’s startled expression as he cradled the whelp to him. Her wet, hot tears continued to sink into his tunic and her arms pulled at the silver chain that held the two silver human rings.

“Enough of this,” Wrathion announced, tapping a claw against Nyx’s shoulder. “Enough of spending the summer cooped up in this volcano. We should leave, we should go on some kind of a journey.”

Anduin’s eyes widened in surprise and he pushed himself up further in the armchair, leaning over to fold his arms across his left knee. Nyx looked up, as well.

“A journey?” Anduin repeated, an incredulous bite to his tone. 

“Yes,” Wrathion replied.

“ _Now?_ ”

“Not right this very moment, no,” Wrathion huffed, heat rising to his cheeks. “After the rains have cleared, at least. Soon.”

“To _where?_ ”

“Anywhere,” Wrathion decided, running the pad of his thumb across Nyx’s stained cheek to catch another tear. “Everywhere. I do not want the rest of the Black Dragonflight to grow up as Ebyssian did, unable to leave Highmountain for fear of succumbing to corruption or danger.”

“Wrathion,” Anduin sounded almost exasperated. “Were we not just discussing the importance of hiding?”

“I will not raise our brood in fear,” Wrathion said as he continued to brush the slowing tears from Nyx’s cheeks. “If the Red Dragonflight insists on stalking us, then we might as well put them through the trouble of chasing after us. If Alexstrasza intends on staging an abduction, let her attempt to do so with the rest of Azeroth watching.”

Anduin rubbed the stubble on his unshaven jaw, considering as his blue gaze flickered. “...can we go to Dun Morogh?”

“Surely you can think more broadly than that, Anduin Wrynn,” Wrathion tapped an ebony claw beneath Nyx’s chin, provoking a small giggle.

“Mulgore...?” A light sparked behind the priest's eyes. “Uldum.”

“Wherever you like, my dear.” Wrathion reached across to take Anduin’s hand, rubbing his thumb across the thin scars on his knuckles. “Azeroth awaits.”

* * *

At the sudden rush of cold air against his back Wrathion’s eyelids fluttered open, red spilling over the moss. He realized that he had almost drifted right off to sleep in the descent of the afterglow, his mortal limbs laden with the rush of blood from his orgasm. He managed to summon the energy to turn over and rest on his opposite side, where he saw Anduin seated at the edge of the nest, rolling a rubber sock over his residual limb, preparing to slide the prosthesis socket over it.

“Where are you going?” Wrathion murmured, brows furrowing and voice thick with contentment as his claws ran across a small white wildflower growing in the moss. 

“Just for a ride,” Anduin replied, stretching out flat on his stomach to reach for his breeches, in a heap where Wrathion had thrown them a short while ago. His skin was still flushed a pleasant shade of red on his cheeks, the tips of his ears, and his chest.

“So late?”

Anduin hummed in confirmation as he pushed himself to his feet, slipping on his wrinkled tunic and walking over to the wardrobe to fetch his leather dragon scale vest. “Yes. There’s just one thing that I’d like to take care of before we depart tomorrow.”

Wrathion’s brows furrowed, his lips pursing the entire time he watched Anduin finish dressing in a cloak, tying his hair back into a tight ponytail. He softened when Anduin crawled back into the nest to give him a kiss farewell.

“Be careful, my dear.”

Anduin rode Zephyr across the Burning Steppes, all the way to a small outcropping in the ruins of what was once some kind of dwarven temple made from charcoal black stone. He released Zephyr into the night to exercise herself as he began to set up a small campsite, striking sparks from a flint into a contained pile of debris, staff resting against a column. He settled in with a book on the excavation of ancient Titan pyramids and glyphs in the Searing Gorge, drawing his cloak around him, listening to the sounds of distant lava flows and worgs howling. Stars and distant worlds blinked in the eternal black sprawl of the night sky overhead.

When Valeera stepped from the shadows, she took the priest by complete surprise. Her boots hadn’t made a sound until she had kicked a small pebble before the fire with deliberation. Anduin shut the book cover with a _snap_ , too startled to even get up.

“Of all the times to be buried in a book, Anduin,” she scolded, signing the Common words with her hands and mouthing the shapes of sounds she would have made if not for the scar on her throat. “I would have thought your husband would’ve had a better influence on you, considering who he is.”

“It’s good to see you, too, Valeera,” Anduin responded with a helpless smile.

Valeera motioned for Anduin to remain seated when he attempted to push himself to his feet. She pulled the hood of her blood red cloak back, her long blonde ponytail spilling over one leather-plated shoulder. As Valeera settled, Anduin took two tin cups from his satchel and a jug-shaped thermos.

“I know it’s not as elegant a reception as you’re used to for these kinds of meetings,” he apologized, pouring out wine into the two cups.

“You have a way of bringing elegance with you wherever you go,” Valeera signed, her green eyes gentle and a smile crossing her face before she accepted the cup.

Anduin’s face turned red and he tried to hide his grateful smile as he set out a hunk of Stormwind brie and a loaf of crisp bread on a cloth between them. Valeera passed him a small, unmarked envelope she had taken from her own satchel, the contents of which Anduin studied as she ate and drank. The buzzing and chirping of distant night insects filled the comfortable silence, even as Anduin’s face grew grave.

“Ah, so it was Merithra,” he murmured before taking another sip of wine. “Concerning, of course, but it’s still unclear if she did so out of loyalty or thoughtlessness, or if there is an ignorance of the tension between the Red and the Black flights. I suppose the thing for me to do is to begin making acquaintances with other consorts of the Green Dragonflight, perhaps someone from Mulgore who knows Baine.”

Valeera nodded in agreement, biting into a slice of the bread she had smeared with soft cheese. Anduin folded the parchment and laid it into the fire. They watched the edges take to the flames, curling into black, glowing embers to swallow the code written in ink.

“We’re leaving tomorrow,” Anduin explained, helping himself to a piece of cheese Valeera had sliced for him. “Ebyssian will be looking after the Lair in our absence, and Blacktalon of course. Left and Right are leaving as well, with the intent of seeking out information about the Red Dragonflight’s current business, if they are still undertaking experiments like they did on Wrathion and his siblings.”

“That’s wise,” Valeera signed, her long, pale brows furrowing.

“I have a more difficult request,” Anduin continued, swirling his drink in his glass as he studied the fire. “I want to know the Queen of Dragons’ temperament, to get a better sense of her character. How easily can she be reasoned with and under what circumstances? How does _she_ feel about the Black Dragonflight, personally? It would require a great deal of information from those who are closest to her, ideally her handmaidens.”

“I can slot myself deeper into Wyrmrest,” Valeera signed with a firm nod. “The sooner you can secure reliable eyes and ears in the Temple, the better. There are many sin’dorei who serve as consorts for the Red Dragonflight. I can begin drawing a list of trustworthy contacts.”

“Good,” Anduin’s face softened, fresh worry lines cupping his eyes. “I cannot describe the relief that your loyalty and friendship brings to me. If there is anything I can do for you with the resources I have at Blackrock, you have but to ask.”

Valeera reached across to brush Anduin’s bangs back, cupping his jaw and running her thumb across an old, faint scar on his cheek before bringing it back to sign.

“My duty is forever to you, Little Lion, and to the children of House Wrynn. And from the sounds of it, there will be many, many more to come, if you and your Earth-Warder can manage it.”

* * *

The summer sun shone bright overhead, hot and fierce in the clear blue sky. The morning’s warmth had seeped into the soil beneath Wrathion’s boots as he crossed the length of the field. Nyx trailed after him, trying to match his long strides so that she could fit her footprints within his. A small crowd had gathered at the edge of the fence to watch Wrathion from a safe distance as he worked. This was the third field the dragon had visited that day and he wanted it to be his last.

Wrathion paused. Nyx also stopped, a moment later. A familiar, viscous hitch in the ground had caught him in mid-stride. For a moment, he was overwhelmed by the expanse of it, the residue of corruption that covered almost the entire field. It was the reason why the parsnips and tomatoes and other crops were rotten more often than not.

Crouching down, Wrathion pressed his hand into the soil, focusing on the earth. Nyx came around to watch, standing a respectful distance away with her hands clasped behind her back as she rocked from her toes to her heels and back again. That day she had selected a sundress to wear, as yellow as the petals of the tall sunflowers growing at the front of the farmhouse, and dark brown boots the color of their seeds.

“Do you sense it?” Wrathion asked, his red gaze flickering upward.

Nyx shrugged, her brown shoulders disappearing for a moment beneath the waves of her long, raven curls. 

“It feels…” She struggled to find a word, her expression growing serious and eyes wide with concern. “Bad.”

A small, encouraging smile tried to twitch at the corner of Wrathion’s mouth, but he could not muster his usual confidence. There was a great deal of tragedy and death soaked into the field. All around them were the scattered and trampled remains of bruised tomato vines and torn husks from ears of corn that had blistered and rotted for the third season in a row. The darkness in the ground had most likely seeped into the farmers lives the very same way it had with their crops, intruding in other ways: tempers running hotter, cuts and sprains taking longer to heal, restless nights laced with sleep paralysis and abhorrent nightmares. 

“Yes,” Wrathion agreed, scooping a handful of soil into his palm and letting it sift between his fingers. Even in the topsoil, he could feel traces of the Void burning in small granules, making his mortal skin tingle. “Try to memorize the feeling, so that you will recognize it when you encounter it in subtler ways: the iron scent, the thick taste it puts on your tongue. There may be a twinge in your head, like a headache.”

Nyx, to her credit, did not seem terribly disturbed. She wrinkled her nose and made a pointed face that she normally reserved for non-carnivorous food suggestions.

Wrathion let the last of the soil fall back to the ground, brushing his palms together to remove as much of it as he could from his skin. “Even with the faintest traces of corruption, you will hear the whispers, but you must not listen to the words. Be on your guard.”

He could hear the familiar cacophony of whispers himself, threatening to poison the good mood that another day spent in Elwynn Forest working under the bright sun had brought. 

Wrathion reached into the satchel hanging from his shoulder and took out a small vial filled with a black powder, glittering with traces of mineral that looked like micha. When he turned the vial in his hand, the sun made the substance gleam with traces of coalescing oils in green and gold. “Hold out your hands.”

Nyx complied, cupping them as she would when scooping lava from the pools that she enjoyed playing in back home. Wrathion tipped a generous amount of the enchanted dust into her palms.

“There are two ways to deal with corruption: channeling it into one concentrated, isolated spot or breaking it down until the individual pieces are so small and spaces so far apart that they may as well not exist,” Wrathion explained, pushing himself to his feet. “The former runs the risk of creating a dangerous object or place that can be used by the Old Gods and other servants of the Void to corrupt anyone who happens to come upon it. The latter takes a great deal more time.”

Nyx studied the enchantment in her hands, tilting her head to one side, then the other, tipping her palms to watch how the dust moved with the change in gravity. Wrathion stepped over a mound of torn up soil and dug the toe of his boot into the ground, so that there was a small indentation.

“Plant the dust in here,” he instructed, pointing with a claw.

With careful steps, Nyx came closer until she could squat down beside the tiny crater. She released the dust so that it spilled through a gap in her hands. When she had finished, brushing the last traces from her palms the way Wrathion had done moments before with the soil, Wrathion swept his boot across the ground in front of her, pushing the freshly-upturned dirt he had scooped out over the dust. He crouched down again and gestured.

“Place your hands here,” he requested.

With an uncertain glance, Nyx planted her palms flat on top of the mound, side-by-side. Wrathion covered them with his own, so that they were both pressing down into the soft earth. He could feel the magic from the dust already beginning to take to the soil, spreading and seeping upward in gentle ripples.

“Concentrate on the enchantment,” Wrathion said. “Can you feel it?”

Nyx nodded, her curls bouncing over her shoulders.

“We will work together to disperse it throughout the area. Follow in my wake as best as you can manage, I will do most of the work. Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

From the core of his being, Wrathion summoned a great wave of energy and heat, expelling it down through his hands. Nyx did her best to imitate the spell, channeling a small wisp of the same earth magic, but her body rocked back from the force of it. Wrathion’s hands tightening on hers kept her from falling. The energy radiated outward, taking the enchantment worked into the dust with it. Wrathion encouraged the ripples until they were great waves, his face tightening as he concentrated. Roils of magic soaked into the earth like water in a desert thinning the thick tar of corruption.

When he was satisfied that the enchantment had spread far beyond the edge of the corruption, almost to the roots of the surrounding forest trees, Wrathion released, heaving for the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding back. Nyx fell backwards with a _plomp_ , catching herself on her hands. Her shoulders were trembling as she huffed like she had just finished flying a rapid mile.

“There,” Wrathion smirked as he tried to restore both his breathing and the confidence in his voice. “That’s much better, wouldn’t you agree?”

Nyx looked around as she, too, sucked in gulps of air, scrambling to her feet. Wrathion stood and used a familiar, quick spell out of habit to throw the dirt stains from the folds of her dress.

“It’s...lighter?” she said, looking up at him with a wide, questioning glance.

Wrathion nodded. “That’s right. We’ve tipped the balance back in the earth’s favor. In time, if this land is protected from the Void’s further intervention, the rains and the roots of fresh crops will dissolve the Void until there is more life than corruption in the soil.”

Heat rose to his cheeks when Wrathion turned and saw that the two farmers who owned the land had been joined by what looked like every member of their extended family who lived both in the farmhouse and nearby. Nyx had noticed as well and she stuck so close to his pant leg that she nearly tripped him once or twice on their way back to the edge, where the broad leaves of the deciduous forest canopy cast cool shadows across the tall grass.

On the way, Wrathion spotted a woman with dark, shoulder-length hair and cool, light-green eyes watching from where she leaned against the trunk of a tree. Around her neck hung a loose red bandana that covered the front of her denim vest. Her arms were folded tight across her chest and her brows were furrowed in a sharp, contemplative expression, as if she were analyzing every motion he was making. When she caught his gaze, she held it for a moment, before turning and walking back in the direction of Westbrook Village.

“How is it?” the older woman who managed most of the farm asked, her brow creased with worry.

Wrathion cleared his throat, putting on his best, well-rehearsed smile. “It may still give you some difficulty in some stubborn patches, but I expect the land is well on its way to healing. My consort will be making rounds later to lay the Light’s blessing on the treated areas. I would plant again as soon as you are able.”

Relief washed over the woman’s hard face. She turned, raising the backs of her cracked, wrinkled knuckles to her mouth for a moment. Her husband let out an audible hum of approval and there were murmurs from the other family members. One young woman, a daughter or cousin most likely, hitched up her long linen skirt and placed one boot out onto the field, then the other. When the woman turned to face Wrathion again, he was surprised to find her eyes shining with tears.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice cracking with uncertainty as she looked him up and down. “We’re extremely grateful, Earth-Warder.”

Wrathion accepted the mortal handshakes that were offered to him, chasing away their attempts to greet Nyx, who did not seem amicable to the attention from where she hid behind his legs. He fended them off and gracefully made his departure, taking to the path that would lead back to Westbrook. Away from the eyes of the strangers, Nyx at last relinquished her grip on the hem of his billowing pant leg and skipped ahead, kicking at the occasional offending pebble and stopping to examine any wildflowers that caught her interest along the road. She was mostly quiet and Wrathion was content to enjoy the silence and the privacy. Occasionally, his ears pricked at the sound of Nyx muttering to herself. The words Wrathion caught seemed to indicate some question or other she was asking out loud to herself about the plants and insects she found. Sometimes she would narrate her own actions as she flitted through the brush, arms outstretched in an imitation of the flying she could not quite manage with her wings yet.

At the approach of the village, bustling with people running the last of the afternoon’s errands before the shopkeepers and artisans closed up for the evening, Nyx once again returned to his shadow. He offered his hand as an alternative, which she accepted by clutching two of his fingers. They approached a small white-painted house that served as a kind of infirmary for the village. Seated in rockers on the large front porch were several patients chatting or occupying themselves with hobbies in the fresh summer air. They cast a wary eye at Wrathion and made curious glances at his daughter that caused his hackles to rise, but their greetings were friendly enough and he was able to enter the residence without incident.

The first floor of the house had been converted into a space which held a variety of chairs and small tables strewn about with various support structures and exercise equipment. A familiar golden glow drew Wrathion’s gaze to the corner, where Anduin knelt to be eye-level with a mortal girl who seemed to be twelve or thirteen with long brown hair plaited back into a single braid. The glow was not coming from Anduin but the girl, who was summoning it from the palm of her left hand to soothe the upper part of her right arm, which supported a prosthetic arm, elbow, and hand. Standing off to the side were two women who watched with their arms linked around each other’s waists.

Nyx released her hold on Wrathion’s hand and tore across the floor, her boots thumping on the rugged floorboards. She collided with Anduin, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her full weight into his back. Anduin laughed and grasped her wrists firmly before standing up, lifting her up off the floor. She settled onto his back and he switched his grip to support her beneath the knees as she kicked her ankles forward. He bounced twice, provoking a small, stifled giggle.

Wrathion’s approach was far more measured but his presence at Anduin’s side drew more surprised stares from the girl and her mothers.

“Wrathion, this is Nellie Sommer and Fae Woodward,” Anduin gestured first to the blonde haired woman with the stern expression then to the woman with brown hair by her side. “And their daughter, Adeline. Addy’s finished being fitted for her first prosthesis. This is my mate, Wrathion, and our daughter, Nyxondra.”

Nellie stuck her hand out, tipping her chin up. Her smile was tight and tense and the grip of her firm handshake nearly caused the bones in Wrathion’s knuckles to crack but she gave him a respectful nod before letting her wife step forward to greet him with enough warmth for the two of them.

“It’s an honor to meet you, Sir,” Fae said with a smile, taking his hand in both of hers. “It’s such a blessing to see the two of you together.”

Stunned, Wrathion found himself almost at loss for words as he felt self-conscious heat flame across his cheeks. “Thank you, my dear. That’s very kind of you.”

“Why don’t you two go outside and run around or something?” Anduin suggested to the girls. “You should enjoy the sunlight before it disappears.”

Nyx and Adeline had been staring quietly at each other, Nyx peering down from behind Anduin’s shoulder and Adeline squinting back from her seat in the wooden chair. After a moment, Adeline’s brows unfurrowed and though she didn’t smile, she nodded and stood up. Nyx looked at Anduin who gave her an encouraging grin as he set her back down on the ground. The whelp stared at Adeline, and then returned her own small nod. Adeline beckoned with a gesture of her right hand and a tilt of her chin and the two cautiously made their way towards the front door.

“There’s going to be a barn dance tonight,” Fae declared, clasping her hands in the folds of her skirt as she looked to her wife with a grin. “To celebrate the cleansing of the fields. It’s a potluck, people will be bringing all sorts of good food. I’m sure most of the village would be honored if you three could join in.”

Wrathion looked to Anduin for guidance, arching a confused brow. Anduin gave him a small, secret smile, excitement sparking in his warm blue eyes as he reached out to touch his elbow.

“A barn dance! That sounds excellent!” The priest said with cheerful excitement. “I’ve been to exactly one before. My father took me, but naturally I couldn’t join everyone else in the way that I wanted to. I’d love to experience it again without needing to stay stuck between two bodyguards.”

“They say that Vanessa VanCleef is in town,” Nellie spoke up, looking pointedly from Anduin to Wrathion and back again. “She may make an appearance with her fiance. Is that going to be a problem?”

Anduin’s smile faltered, but he chuckled to himself, rubbing the back of his neck as he considered, the tips of his ears and cheeks turning red.

“I suppose I could always try a disguise again.”

* * *

The rippling, dry golden fields of Westfall shimmered under the early morning summer sun. The salty breeze from the ocean drifted in from over the peak of the distant hills, where the dry ground gave way to tall grass and sand dunes. It whipped at Anduin’s bangs, threatening to tug his hair from the loose, hastily tied ponytail. He stood with Wrathion outside the back door to an old but impeccably well cared for single-story cottage, painted white with a dark green roof and trimming. A large black cat watched them from where she lounged in the warm sun next to the white rose beds.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Anduin reminded the dragon, gently. “If I were you, I’d be getting some sleep instead.”

Wrathion looked exhausted. His red eyes were lined with deep, dark bags, arms folded in defiance over his chest.

“No, I think not,” he heaved a heavy sigh. “I won’t be able to rest until I’ve....perhaps subjected myself to some physical exertion. And I do not wish to entertain nightmares about her death--”

Wrathion raised a hand and to cover his mouth, cutting himself off. His brows furrowed as he tugged at his beard.

“She won’t die,” the priest soothed, placing his hands on Wrathion’s shoulders and squeezing them. “I promise if there’s any turn for the worst, I’ll come and get you straight away. You won’t be very far, your wings will have you back here in minutes.”

Small sparks of Light rose from beneath Anduin’s fingertips, warming Wrathion’s shoulders. Wrathion’s dubious red gaze flickered upward, crimson haze wafting into the morning light.

“I won’t let anything happen,” Anduin promised, his voice quiet as he pressed the Light to Wrathion’s cheek.

The dragon nodded and allowed Anduin to lean in for a soft, gentle kiss, pressing the Light to his cheek. With one last look towards the lower window of the house, Wrathion turned and trudged up the path to where a wagon was waiting. A man wearing a fine tailored shirt and vest with practical work boots over his breeches waved from the driver’s seat, where he held the reins to a sturdy brown, red, and white painted workhorse. His fair blond hair was the exact shade as Anduin’s. More men were seated in the back, carrying farm tools, tin boxes packed with egg sandwiches, and thermoses of freshly brewed coffee.

Anduin watched the wagon ride off, Wrathion looking miserable in his seat of honor beside the driver. He turned and headed inside, almost bumping into a tall woman with long blonde hair braided in a crown on top of her head.

“Anduin!” His second cousin, Ellie, greeted him with a cheerful smile, her freckled, pale face splotched red from the effort of carrying a large basket of rustic brown potatoes, leafy green celery, blood-purple onions, and dusty carrots. “There you are! Do you mind bringing this into the kitchen? Granny’s waiting for you.”

“Certainly, of course.” Anduin grunted in surprise as he took the weight into his hands, the scratchy wicker handles digging into his palms.

He staggered down the hall into the kitchen, where Dame Tabitha Ellerian stood next to a great brick hearth, stirring a pot of chicken bones and meat hung over the fire. The room was filled with the smell of the broth, which had been simmering since before the sunrise. The matriarch of the Ellerian family was dressed in a simple gray-blue linen dress with a crisp white apron tied over the front to protect the finely tailored fabric. Her faded, blonde-gray hair was pinned back into a tidy bun, frizzed wisps of which framed her stern face. She held a pot lid in one gnarled hand, a large, well-worn wooden spoon with the other that she used to push at the pieces within.

“There you are, Anduin, dear.” Tabitha gestured with the hand that held the pot lid to the island in the center of the room, where bunches of herbs and bottles of spices were already laid out. The blood and feathers from the morning had been cleaned up. “Just set those down on the counter, don’t strain yourself.”

“It’s all right,” Anduin insisted, hoisting the basket onto the counter. “How is the stock?”

“Coming along quite nicely, thank you.” Tabitha briskly pushed her thick glasses up the bridge of her nose. “It’s a tried and true recipe, nearly impossible to ruin.”

Anduin stood leaning with his back against the counter to take the weight off his right leg. He stood staring at the lightening sky through the open windows, watching the sheer curtain sway in the achingly familiar salty breeze. After a moment, he asked with a quiet voice: “...you mentioned that my mother had it memorized?”

“Oh, yes.” Tabitha took out the wooden spoon and closed the lid over the pot, cutting off the source of rich, savory steam. “She wrote it down and had the servants make it for her many, many times at the Keep on request to comfort her when she was sick and alone up there. She said it reminded her of home.”

Tabitha set the spoon down, removing her glasses and cleaning the fog from the lenses. Anduin started when she suddenly gestured to the potatoes. “Let’s get to it, now, please take those over to the sink and start scrubbing with the bristle brush. Once they’re clean, I’ll teach you the proper way to skin and cube them.”

Anduin fumbled his way through the next handful of hours with his great-grandmother hovering at his elbow, waving the wooden spoon as if she were conducting an orchestra. In between being taught the correct way to use a brush to scrub both vegetables and dirty dishes, how to check dried herbs for freshness, how to skin and peel potatoes, and the best way to use a sharp knife, Tabitha told him stories of Tiffin Ellerian Wrynn’s talents in the kitchen. Before she left for Stormwind City, her homemade stews and herbal remedies were notorious across their small part of mid-western Westfall.

“You have your father’s hands,” Tabitha observed with a touch of approval as Anduin readied the last bits of celery under her sharp gaze. “But your mother’s thoughtful way of using them, Light bless you.”

Anduin’s face flushed as he gathered the celery along with a heap of leek slices in a bowl, beads of his sweat dampening his shirt collar and armpits. He’d rolled his shirt sleeves up past the elbow and undone the top two buttons at the neck in an attempt to allow more air on his skin, Wrathion’s star ruby pendant glistening in the gap. The heat of the fire in the mantle drove his flush deeper as he carried the vegetables over to the pot and pushed them into the mixture with the flat end of the knife.

“There,” Anduin declared, returning the instruments to the counter. He wiped his brow with the back of one hand before setting both on his hips. “What next?”

“Next we wait. And we clean.” Tabitha had already begun to cart cooking tools over to the sink. “But let me get started on this, you ought to go check on the little one. It’s just about time to reapply the vapor rub. Later, I’ll see if we can dig up Tiffin’s personal recipes, I know I saved them.”

“Yes, My Lady,” Anduin said before he could stop himself. “Er…”

“‘Granny’ is fine for you, dear,” Tabitha repeated for not the first time since Anduin’s arrival, almost on autopilot as she lathered soap into the brush. “Or just ‘Tabitha’, if you would prefer.”

Anduin walked to the other end of the house, towards one of the bedrooms. He rapped his knuckles on the ajar door, drawing the attention of the women sitting inside. Ellie sat in a wooden chair pulled up to the side of the great, full-sized bed where two of his other cousins sprawled at the foot. They were playing some kind of card game with the bed’s occupant. Despite the weather, a generous fire was roaring and crackling in the hearth, keeping the area so hot that the cousins had rolled up their blouses’ and dresses’ sleeves and were sipping from cups of crushed ice in an attempt to keep cool.

“Anduin!” Ellie’s flushed face lit up. “How is lunch coming along?”

“Very well, I think,” Anduin said with a smile as he approached, hands clasped behind his back. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but may I have a few minutes alone with her?”

“Of course!”

The three women folded up the cards and Ellie set the entire deck down on the bedside table before filing out of the small bedroom, fanning themselves and sighing with exaggerated relief as they took in the cool air in the hallway. Nyx sat tucked in at the head of the bed, propped up in a mountain of plush white pillows, a small towel wrapped around her narrow whelp neck. Her large maroon eyes were bloodshot and when she breathed, a discerning rattling noise accented each inhale.

“How are you doing, princess?” Anduin asked, easing himself down to sit on the edge of the mattress, his bones all but groaning with relief. He reached out to touch Nyx’s cheek. The scales were cold and clammy when she nuzzled into his hand.

“ **Good,** ” Nyx replied, her voice despondent and thick, as if she were speaking through a gel.

“You’re still too cold.” Anduin pulled back the covers to check the metal bed warming pan that Nyx was sitting on top of. “Let me reheat this for you.”

Nyx scooted off the pan, allowing Anduin to pick it up by the handle. He carried it over to the hearth and dumped the cold pieces of charcoal into the fire. Fresh, burning pieces were then scooped inside and the warmer itself returned to its place at the head of the bed next to the pillows. Nyx crawled on top and Anduin tucked the covers in around her.

“How are my cousins treating you?” Anduin asked, undoing the folds of the towel around her neck. “I think I can manage to fend them off if it’s too much for you.”

“ **No,** ” Nyx murmured, lifting her chin as Anduin used a handkerchief, dampened with water from a pitcher on the nightstand, to clean the scales of her nostrils. “ **They’re nice.** ”

“Good, I’m glad to hear it.” Next, Anduin took a dark green glass jar from the nightstand and unscrewed the lid. A kind of semi-opaque cream sat inside. He scooped some on his finger and dabbed a small amount under both of Nyx’s nostrils. “Breathe in, please.”

Nyx complied, the worrying rattling noise sounding in her chest.

“Can you feel the bite in your nose?” Anduin asked.

Nyx nodded, the movement slow and sluggish. Anduin took more cream and spread it over the scales on Nyx’s throat, re-wrapping the towel.

“There, that should help you breathe a bit easier.” Anduin replaced the lid on the glass jar and selected a large vial, filled with a thick, cherry-red medicinal syrup and a large silver spoon. “You’re overdue for a little more of this.”

Nyx wrinkled her nostrils in disdain and gave a defiant, miserable sniffle.

“It will soothe the aching,” Anduin pointed out as he tipped the bottle to fill the spoon with syrup.

When he held the spoon up to the whelp’s mouth, she obediently opened and swallowed the spoonful of medicine. Anduin leaned over and kissed the ridge of her brow. “Well done. There’s some chicken soup on the hearth, but I can find you something if you’re hungry now.”

“ **I can wait,** ” Nyx’s eyes narrowed, snorting as she tipped her chin up. “ **There aren’t any vegetables in it, are there? I don’t want to eat them.** ”

Anduin leaned in to bump the tip of his nose against hers. “As you wish. I’ll pick them out for you.”

Nyx made a satisfied chirping noise, her eyelids drooping as she settled back into the pillows. “ **Can you please use the Light?** ”

“Of course.”

Anduin swung his legs across the mattress and shifted so that he was flat on his stomach with a pillow to cushion his ribs. He laid his palm on Nyx’s stomach and began to sing a hymn, a warm, golden glow casting shadows over the quilt and the floral-print wallpaper. 

“ **Can only humans do this?** ” Nyx murmured, a small, stuttering purr rising in her chest. “ **You. That human girl…Addy…** ”

“Channel the Light?” Anduin hummed. “No. Anyone can pray to the naaru and learn how to wield their blessings.”

Nyx adjusted, turning onto her side so that she could curl up with her head resting in the pillow. She sneezed abruptly, causing Anduin to jump and slam his Light-shielded palm down on the sparks that caught on the pillowcase. Nyx grumbled at the disruption, but soon settled in a comfortable spot amongst the linens again. Heart beating, grimacing slightly at the burnt spots in the finely-tailored pillowcase, Anduin couldn’t help but release his nerves by chuckling, settling back onto his elbow. He ran his hand along the whelp’s flank, sparks dancing off her scales, picking up where he had left off in his song. A moment later, Nyx was asleep, her breathing just a bit easier, her body just a bit warmer.

* * *

The night sky extended for an incredible distance above Mulgore’s vast, flat grass planes. It made Wrathion’s mind reel to stare at it when he stood in the moonlight at the outer edges of the mesa, away from the firelight where he could see the winking stars. If he wasn’t careful, he was sure that he would fall from the surface of Thunder Bluff’s towering mesas and tumble in. Though it was so late at night that the hours were beginning to tip into morning, the entire tauren city seemed to be still awake with no sign of wanting to bring the final day of the Midsummer Fire Festival to an end. Attendees consisted mostly of tauren locals but among them were all races of the Horde who either lived in or were visiting the tauren capital. Traces of lavender nightborne tattoos shimmered in the torchlight and a caravan of vulpera had even managed to bring their wagons and alpaca with them up the great wooden lifts. A handful of ambassadors and bold, wayward travelers from the Alliance also mingled with the Horde crowds, striking up conversations with anyone willing to be patient with their clumsy attempts at speaking _Taur-ahe_.

Among them was one dragon wandering the streets of the Middle Rise, his boots scuffing over the gravel and stone paved paths, carrying a horn of the tauren’s light, hop-spiced beer. Wrathion’s mortal stomach was just about bursting from the abundance of spit-roasted kodo, grilled corn, and crisp, sweet melon he had consumed. He was almost certain that if he were to shift into his draconic form, he wouldn’t be able to lift himself off the ground. Hundreds of fires burned from the great brass and stone braziers, some with minerals mixed into the fuel to give the flames striking colors of teal blue and vivid crimson.

On the uppermost level of the Middle Rise, a great bonfire roared in front of the chieftain's lodge to illuminate one of the larger gatherings. Its flames were so high and luminous that they threw long shadows across the entire open area between the circle of vendors and artisan huts. A group of musicians beat at taut leather drums and sang along to a rousing melody others played with wood pipes. Dancers were swirling and stomping in clusters around the fire, their melodic cries matched by the refrain of the singers. Under the clamor, Wrathion felt a strange sense of peace settle over him at the sight of Nyx perched at the edge of the clearing on the end of a long wooden bench. Her small whelp’s form was dwarfed by the dozens of children seated around her, mostly tauren, orcs, and one small troll. All were captivated by an illusion show performed by a tall tauren with gray and white spotted fur wearing a crimson cloak with a golden sun stitched on the back and a feathered mask over his serious but kind face. 

Sparks of a familiar, firework-type enchantment formed under the direction of the magician’s large, agile paws. Wrathion hung back to watch a golden, red-eyed gazelle leap around the children, causing them to shriek with delighted laughter and mock fear. Nyx looked more startled by the other children yelling around her than by any of the illusions themselves, her wings unfolding by a cautious amount as she pushed herself back, almost up onto her hind paws. Her small, horned head twisted and turned to take in the minor chaos and in doing so, she caught Wrathion’s gaze when she turned around. She stared at him, looking for guidance with her uncertain, dark eyes. Wrathion merely shrugged and gave an encouraging nod. Nyx shook out her head in annoyance, but became distracted by the appearance of a great purple vulture swooping low over their heads.

“Earth-Warder?”

Wrathion turned to find Baine Bloodhoof approaching. The tauren High Chieftain wore a teal and gold tabard emblazoned with the symbol of a midsummer fire over his casual leathers. The thousands of colorful beads and pale bones that adorned his great antlers clicked together as he walked.

“ _Awaihilo_ ,” Wrathion replied, his voice light as he gestured with the horn in his hand. “Would you care to join me in a toast to your magnificent celebration and the waning days of this brilliant summer?”

“Erm, no, forgive me.” Bane had a strange expression on his face. “I’ve come to bring your attention to a delicate matter that requires your...personal attention.”

Wrathion laughed. 

“Tonight? What could possibly...” The smile faded just as quickly as it had come. “Is it Anduin?”

Baine grimaced, but to Wrathion’s relief, there was an amused light in his eyes. “Yes. I, ah, believe he may have simply overestimated his tolerance to the strength of our beer and could use a friendly hand to help him back to your lodgings.”

Wrathion drained what remained of his own drink, setting the horn to hang from its leather strap from a clasp at the hip of his fabric belt. The enchanter had finished with his display and Nyx padded over for a brief reprieve from the children who were beginning to strike up rowdy conversations with one another.

“I must go see to Anduin,” Wrathion explained, kneeling down so that he could speak more clearly over the sound of the band, which was also striking up a more invigorating beat to signal another round of dancing. “Do you still feel comfortable sleeping over with the others?”

The dragon glanced up to catch the gaze of the tauren matron who was overseeing the children. She returned a smile and a cheerful wave. Some of the children appeared to be interested in the exchange as well, curious to see if the dragon whelp would return to the group.

“ **Yes, _Atya_ ,**” Nyx said.

“Do you remember where we will be staying, should you need us?” Wrathion asked.

Nyx spread her wings and rose onto her rear paws, squinting as she peered out over the lower rise. She pointed with a claw to a structure with a dark patterned canvas roof, trimmed with yellow and blue hexagons.

“Good.” Wrathion ran a thumb across her cheek. Nyx nudged his hand with a smile and rushed back to rejoin the group of Horde children, who had erupted into a chaotic game of tag.

Baine led Wrathion down a lazy, meandering path to an area of the lower rise where there were smaller bonfires scattered by a large pond next to the marketplace. A crowd of priests consisting mostly of tauren and one draenei were drinking from a wooden keg of beer and engaged in a peaceful game that involved tossing small satchels of dried corn through a hole in a standing painted wooden board. A tall tauren whose body was covered with light brown fur broken by jagged dark red hunting scars was weaving flower crowns from a basket filled with white and pale yellow peaceblooms. The finished ones already adorned the heads of most of the others, his own long chestnut-brown braids threaded with spare blossoms. Each of them had the distinct trace of a golden naaru rune on their brows. 

Wrathion at last spotted Anduin sitting off to the side of the game circle with his long legs splayed crooked out in front of him. His hands were dwarfed by those of a heavyset tauren who was seated before him. A soft golden glow emitted from his eyes, locked with those of the tauren’s as they both prayed, graceful tendrils of light diffusing from his palms. The tauren wept, tears of silent joy running down his cheeks, another naaru symbol blazing with Holy Fire over the thick bangs on his brow. Wrathion exchanged glances with Baine, who returned his surprised glance with a helpless smile.

“He’s been mostly administering blessing after blessing, while preaching some kind of...I believe it is a _draenei_ gospel that he is quite fond of,” Baine did his best to explain. “And I fear he will continue to do so until he passes out from exhaustion if no one stops him.”

“Thank you,” Wrathion said. “I will...collect him.”

At Wrathion’s approach, Anduin’s face dropped, the Light dissipating to reveal his frightened, bloodshot eyes and to bathe both him and the tauren in shadow and the faint illumination cast by Wrathion’s red eyes. The tauren smiled at the dragon, using a careful finger to wipe tears from the damp fur on his cheeks, and he thanked Anduin before rising to his hooves to join the others in the circle.

“ _Wrathion_ ,” Anduin murmured, his speech deep and slurred. “I’m so sorry.”

The dragon looked from the priest, miserable as he held a cupped hand up to his mouth and swayed in his seated sprawled position on the ground, to the happy and peaceful tauren in the game circle. Anduin’s blessings glowed like fireflies in the night and he had to admit that there was something about the air that seemed peaceful and...holy.

“Anduin Llane Wrynn, I do believe you are _drunk_ ,” Wrathion tutted, crouching down beside him with a gentle smile. “I leave you alone to your own devices for two hours and here I find you in this state.”

“Where’s Nyx?”

“Safe. She’ll still be spending the night with one of the orphan matrons...hopefully learning how to better speak to children around her age.”

Anduin covered his face with the palms of his hands, nearly falling backwards as he pressed the heels into his closed eyes. “...Baine...oh, Baine...he must be… _so_ embarrassed by me…”

Wrathion grasped Anduin’s wrists, pulling them back. “Yes, I’m certain he will have many words to say to you over breakfast about how you had the audacity to drink too much beer and cause a scene by healing his people’s minor aches and pains.”

Anduin groaned, his brows furrowing in pain. “...I...can you please help me?”

With Anduin’s arm slung over his shoulder and his own hooked tightly around the priest’s waist, Wrathion hauled the priest onto his feet and used his body as a support to help Anduin limp towards the lodge where they were staying.

“Did you at least enjoy the last day of the festival?” Wrathion ventured.

Anduin sighed. “Wrathion...I love Mulgore. I love Mulgore _so very much_. All I ever wanted for _years_ was to just...talk with Baine...take Reverence out on the plains under the...sun...and _ride_...”

“My dear, we do not have to leave tomorrow,” Wrathion didn’t bother to hide his chuckle, steering Anduin away from a tauren mother kneeling in the road to fix her child’s tabard so that he would not trip over his hooves. “We may stay for as long as you’d like. There is no further corruption here to mend, but if you desire to continue your work with Thunder Bluff’s priests then…”

Anduin made a gagging noise. For one alarming moment, Wrathion feared that he would see the remains of the beer that had driven his consort into this state, but with a quick prayer, Anduin settled his own stomach and they continued on.

The lodge was quiet, the rooms just as empty as the outer areas of the mesa were full, and Wrathion found himself thanking the tauren for having the common sense to use wooden ramps instead of stairs in their abodes. Anduin was able to complete the journey into their room and sit on the edge of their straw bed.

“Are you disappointed in me?” Anduin murmured, head hanging as Wrathion knelt to help him remove his sandals.

“Why would I be disappointed in you?” Wrathion asked, slipping the right one from the metal prosthesis foot with a careful tug. He leaned over and brushed strands of blond hair from Anduin’s face, tucking them behind the human’s soft ear.

“...this...never happens,” Anduin muttered, struggling to thread his arms through the sleeves of his soft, thin cotton tunic, adorned with colorful, small beads at the slit of the wide, square collar. “I’m _so_ careful…”

Wrathion stood and leaned over, meeting Anduin’s parted lips for a kiss. “Don’t despair, my dear, this will all go away soon and the only complaint you will receive will take the form of a headache.”

With only a minor amount of difficulty, Anduin managed to remove his prosthesis, refusing the short-sleeved sleeping tunic he preferred so that he could stay cool in the hot summer air. Wrathion pulled back the woven blanket and helped the priest slide across the sheets. A moment later the dragon joined him, dressed in his own sleeveless tunic and shorts. Anduin immediately wrapped his limbs around him.

“I love you,” Anduin murmured, burrowing his face into Wrathion’s collar.

Wrathion’s hand came up to cup the back of Anduin’s head, stroking his blond hair. He found himself smiling in the darkness, relishing the comfort of having the weight of the human’s body, which smelled of midsummer charcoal and the sweet sun-kissed grass, pressed against his and the sound of his rapid heartbeat close by.

Anduin seemed to know exactly how to slot the two of their bodies together so that they were touching as much as was physically possible, his left leg hooked around Wrathion’s right, nestling his right thigh between Wrathion’s legs, his long arms looped around the dragon’s back to stroke the bones of his shoulder blades, right over the wings of dark scars.

“I’m just so glad we’re here,” Anduin murmured, almost as if he were in prayer. “And I’m so very grateful that every night I get to fall asleep beside you.”

Wrathion’s eyes widened, casting a red glow across the pillows. The light shimmered with the abrupt threat of tears welling in them. He let his chin rest on Anduin’s shoulder, tightening his own careful hold on the priest’s torso. Before he could think of the words to say that would even begin to return his own sentiments, Anduin’s breathing had deepened, signaling that he was already drifting off into a deep, restorative sleep as the drums continued to play in the early morning dark.

* * *

Winters in Pandaria were short but brutal and felt the worst at the high elevation in the mountains. Wrathion considered this as he stepped outside of the small but sturdy tent onto the snow, red gaze sweeping over the fresh powder that had befallen the campsite that morning. With a murmur he summoned a handful of flame and sent it roaring across the remnants of the campfire from the previous night, snow melting and then evaporating with a loud hiss, leaving behind the circular stone barrier and the blackened remnants of mountain goat bones from the previous night’s dinner. The fresh snow crunched under his boots, his body heat causing the coating to compress and melt beneath his soles. He wore just his pants, boots, and tunic, the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. His hot breath preceded him with great clouds of vapor.

A crashing sound caused him to snap his head in the direction of a nearby evergreen rhododendron. The branches bounced with vigor as a rain of snow fell down from the branches into a pile at the base. A small, dark form scrambled out of the pile.

“Nyxondra!” Before Wrathion could cross the distance, Nyx had already freed herself and was shaking snow from her scales like a wet, agitated cat, making annoyed but not pained growls as she flapped her orange wings. “Are you hurt?”

“ **No,** ” Nyx said, head held low in shame as she glared over her shoulder at the offending tree, leaving her own hissing footprints as she trotted towards the older dragon. “ **Where are you going?** ”

“Not far,” Wrathion said as he knelt before her, reaching to check her shoulders and wings for injury, ignoring her disgruntled chirps in complaint. “I will be just over the pass to hunt another pair of goats.”

“ **May I come with you?** ”

“No, my dear,” Wrathion said. “It will be quicker if I go alone.”

“ **I am not hungry, _Atya_ ,**” Nyx complained.

“Then I will eat what you do not,” Wrathion insisted, gently, rising to his feet. “Be careful when climbing the trees, you absolutely mustn’t injure yourself. And do not bother Anduin. He needs rest.”

Nyx was silent as she watched Wrathion walk up the snow-covered trail. With a shimmer of magic he shifted into his true form, his massive wings kicking up a cold breeze and a sprinkling of powder that fell back in a gray shower in the cloudy light. When he had disappeared over the ridge, she performed the same kind of transformation in reverse and left small human-shaped tracks with her own curl-toed boots as she headed towards the tent. When she had ducked inside, she made sure to close the flap behind her and shut out the cold mountain air.

Anduin lay on the floor flat on his back, head resting on a small, flat pillow. Piled on top of his body from feet to chin was a small mountain of blankets, cloaks, and both his and Wrathion’s coats. Nyx stood close to the entrance of the tent, eyes narrowing in the shadows. The mountain of fabric moved ever so slightly with each reassuring breath that Anduin took.

“...Nyxondra?” Anduin’s sluggish, quiet voice drifted across the space. “It’s alright, you can come in.”

Nyx slipped off her boots and crept closer to the sleeping bag, sliding down to sit on her knees as she peered at Anduin’s pale face, his lips dry and cracked from days hiking in the increasingly cold weather. His greasy, unwashed blond hair was spread out like a fan across the pillow beneath him.

“I’m sorry, I’ve caused you both to worry,” Anduin sighed, his eyelids fluttering as if it was a struggle to keep them open. “I’ll be fine. I just overextended myself a little yesterday.”

Nyx shifted and sat down fully, crossing her legs in front of her. She picked at a small thread coming undone from the hem of Anduin’s cloak. “Are you very cold?”

“No, not at all, your father made sure of that,” Anduin shifted, sliding a fraction deeper beneath the blankets. “What have you been up to this morning?”

Nyx shrugged. “Nothing. Do you want me to read to you?”

“You wouldn’t rather play in the snow?”

Nyx shook her head. “No. I want to stay with you.”

“All right then, yes, you may read to me,” Anduin agreed with a heavy sigh. “But, you mustn’t be frightened if I fall asleep. I’m very tired.”

Nyx crept over to the wall of the tent, where the prosthesis lay on the floor alongside his and Wrathion’s packs stacked in the corner. The draenei prayer book sat on top of Anduin’s pack, which Nyx picked up and carried back over to sit with. She opened the book across her lap and flipped through the old pages with careful fingers.

“If you called on the Light, would you get better?” she asked, looking up from an illustration of a naaru descending on a draenei temple in Shadowmoon Valley.

“No, these are old injuries, beyond what the Light can repair,” Anduin explained, letting his eyelids close. “Prayer can soothe the pain somewhat...I’ll most likely have the strength to use it again by tomorrow. That should be able to get us on our way.”

Nyx continued to flip through the pages, considering the text. “Can you teach me how?”

Anduin’s eyes opened in surprise. He turned his head to face her fully. “To channel the Light?”

The whelp nodded. “Yes. I want to be able to do what you do.”

For a while, Anduin was silent. He stared long and hard at Nyx as she ran her finger across the page, as if tracing the script would help her absorb some of the knowledge she sought.

“I suppose I could teach you,” he said at last, his words careful and slow. “If you’re interested. And if your father gives his permission.”

As if summoned, the flap to the tent was pulled open and Wrathion climbed through. He cast a mild stern glance towards Nyx.

“Wrathion,” Anduin sighed with almost exaggerated relief. “Come here, Nyx was just helping me stave off boredom by keeping me company.”

Wrathion’s face softened and he cast an apologetic glance at his daughter, stooping to lay a kiss on her forehead, before laying down parallel to the sleeping bag, reclining on his side with one hand on top of Anduin’s chest.

“I’m fine, Wrathion,” Anduin said with the same tired smile he’d given Nyx. “Really.”

“You are not chained to a kingdom’s schedule any longer,” Wrathion said, quietly, after a long pause. “There is no need for you to push yourself. We have all the time in the world to cross these mountains.”

Nyx cast a confused, curious look from Wrathion to Anduin, then back again. Wrathion sighed and gave her a nod, resting his head in his propped up hand. “Let’s hear a story, then, my dear.”

After a moment, the small dragon began to read out loud in slow, stilted draenei.

* * *

The warmth was better than Anduin remembered it. The soothing feeling that had caressed his leg from his toes to his shin when he’d sat at the stone edge in his swim trunks now enveloped his entire body, as warm as any bath that he’d had in Blackrock Mountain. Steam rose from the surface of the hot spring and into the crisp, winter air. He let himself sink down so that the waterline rose above his shoulders up to his ears, his loose, blond hair floating around him. The pads of his toes brushed over the slimy surface of the rocky gravel at the bottom. When he let his heel drift lazily off to the side he could feel an underground vent gush over his foot.

The skin on the back of his neck prickled and he cracked open one eye. A familiar face, freckled with dark scales and framed by long, curly dark hair, peered back at him with round maroon-brown eyes from the rocky edge, near where his prosthesis and robe were piled. A tiny pair of just-so-slightly curved black horns crowned the top of her head.

"Aren’t you afraid of drowning?" Nyx asked.

Anduin smiled and shook his head, ripples rising in the water around him as he floated. "No, not at all. I can reach the bottom and stand up if I have to."

"That makes sense," the dragon observed, kneeling down so she was perched on her heels. “You’re very tall, for a human.”

"Would you like to join me?"

"Don't be foolish, Anduin Wrynn,” Nyx said in a serious imitation of her father. “I do not know how to swim."

"I can teach you," Anduin replied, barely managing to contain his laugh. "If you'd like."

Nyxondra crouched down on her heels at the edge of the pool, arms wrapped around her knees, and glared at the steamy surface of the water. "...no, thank you. I’d prefer to stay right here."

"Suit yourself," Anduin closed his eyes again as he tried not to smile.

Every muscle in his body seemed to be unknotting itself as the heat from the hot spring seeped into his sore bones along with the ancient resonant ebb and flow of the energy in Pandaria. He let himself groan in the utter indulgence of it all. Nyx’s voice once again rose into the cold air.

"What does it feel like?"

"Wonderful," Anduin said, without pause. After another moment, he clarified: "It's very warm. Can you feel the steam rising from the surface?"

Nyx extended her hand, still glaring at the water as if she expected something to burst from the depths and attempt to take a nip at her fingers. Her lip curled on one side, revealing a tiny dragon fang. After a moment, her expression softened a fraction.

"Yes, I can feel the steam," she announced. "...there are vents...beneath the ground...these infuse the water?"

Anduin nodded, his mouth dipping below the waterline to hide his smile as he watched the young dragon continue to study the spring with serious, wide eyes. With sudden determination, she lowered her hand into the water, and as soon as her fingers broke the surface, her eyebrows unknitted themselves.

"Oh," she said. Her frown immediately returned, as if she were scolding herself for letting her emotion show. Her hand remained in the water. "It is warm. Like the lava at home, but much cooler."

"That's right, it’s a bit like home." Anduin let his arms swish back and forth. "Are you sure you wouldn't like to try it?"

Nyx remained silent. Anduin closed his eyes again and let himself recline on his back. After a moment, he heard a splash. When his eyes flew back open again, he saw a small dragon whelp floundering at the edge of the water, kicking her arms and legs, wings spraying water everywhere as they flapped. He dove towards her as fast as he could and soon had her supported in his arms as she sputtered and choked. Soon she settled, her small body trembling.

“Well, I wouldn’t say that was the best start,” Anduin said, cheerfully as he rubbed her back. “At least you’re in the water. Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of it.”

Nyx’s tail wrapped itself around his side and her feet pressed against his stomach as she flattened herself against his scar-marred chest. He tucked his own arm underneath for her to sit on and let his hand rest on her back, stroking her wings which were folded against her sides. The small claws dug into his shoulder, small pinpricks that Anduin did not mind. She swiveled her head around, taking in the scenery as they floated in the spring. Anduin could hear a small rumble reverberate in her chest.

" **Your breathing seems easier,** " Nyx noted, after she had settled down. " **Does the water help you in some way?** "

"Yes, it does," Anduin said. "Many travelers come here to heal in these springs."

" **It's very strange magic.** ”

“I wouldn’t say strange. Just unfamiliar.”

Nyx huffed, smoke pouring from her nostrils and Anduin felt her body temperature rise. She turned to look up at the long wooden building that stood beside the springs, built on bamboo stilts in the rocky mountain ground. A tidy stone path, salted and well-brushed of snow and ice, led to a lower door, in the midst of sleeping snow-dusted garden troughs.

“ **He’s been in there a long time,** ” Nyx considered, a concerned expression on her scaled serpentine face.

Anduin tried not to smile too broadly, even though there was no one around to see or overhear their conversation. The clouds overhead still threatened a small snow and most of the Tavern’s residents decided to stay within the warmth of the building, rather than venture into the baths. 

"He's having a difficult conversation that he's put off for far too long," Anduin said. “I wouldn’t worry.”

Nyx seemed somewhat satisfied by this answer. She suddenly turned her head, almost wrenching herself from Anduin’s arms. Anduin looked, too, and was startled to find something looking back. He realized it was a very young cloud serpent hovering at the edge of the hot spring, the creature’s golden scales a stark contrast to the white snow and the gray stones through the light mist.

The cloud serpent said something to Nyx in a draconic language that Anduin did not understand. Nyx, however, opened her mouth and spoke back, her lilting tone carrying a quiet arrogance. The two whelps went back and forth with snippets of terse conversation. The cloud serpent huffed and slithered back and forth mid-air in an infinity symbol, chirping. Nyx tilted her head towards Anduin.

“ **Atar,** ” she explained.

The cloud serpent squinted at Anduin, almost like a predator sizing up something it had taken as prey. A loud banging noise made the thin dragon start, then dart away across the snowdrifts until its golden body was swallowed by the mists. The rear door to the Tavern had opened and a hefty, muscular pandaren strode out along the path, dressed in a rough brown coat over his work tunic and pants. His stern, cool-brown eyes glared out at the world from beneath two heavy black brows, his waist-length beard tied into a neat braid separated by red clay beads. Wrathion trailed an arm’s length behind, red eyes a bright and welcome light in the chill.

Tong slowed his pace as he approached the edge of the hot springs, staring first at the gnomish prosthesis on the ground, then at its owner floating in the pools. Anduin lifted a hand above the waterline to wave, an unbridled grin crossing his face. The pandaren’s jaw clamped tightly shut as a film of unshed tears swam before his eyes.

“Greetings, Tong!” Anduin said in his best diplomatic voice, tightening his grip on Nyx as he kicked towards the shore. “I hope the Earth-Warder hasn’t given you too hard of a time while paying his horrifyingly overdue tab and for the appalling fire damage done to both his old room and your porch?”

Wrathion huffed, a stream of black smoke sputtering from his nostrils as a small shower of cinders rained down at his feet, blowing out before they reached the cold stone. “Forgive my consort for his insolence, Tong. It seems he still requires a great deal of _training_.”

“ _Enough!_ ” Tong shouted, raising a paw while he blinked furiously. “I refuse to provide either of you lodgings if it means I must once again be subjected to your constant bickering! If you two can somehow muster the discipline to behave yourselves, dinner will be served in two hours.”

* * *

In defiance of the terrible mountain wind that throttled the frosted glass in their bamboo window panes, Tong kept the boilers in the basement running so hot that steam all but screamed as it traveled through the Tavern’s radiator pipes. Though it was a far cry from a magma-heated volcano, Wrathion found the dining room acceptably warm. A strange ache curled in his chest when he thought of Left and Right polishing their crossbows over glasses of amber ale and plates of tempura at the old bar. 

“Black Prince?” Right’s calloused, snapping fingers came within view, drawing his attention to the human woman herself, with a gray streak in her long reddish-brown hair and a few more lines in the corners of her eyes than the version of her in his memory, seated before him at the round pandaren-style table. “If I could steal but a moment more of your precious time, _Your Highness_.”

Left, seated on the cushion to Right’s right side, gave Wrathion an apologetic smile that she hid behind the rim of her beer.

“I suppose you are entitled to just a moment more, my dear,” Wrathion gave a regal nod and a gracious smirk, settling back with his cup of darjeeling tea with a dramatic gesture of his hand. “Please, continue.”

Left and Right’s report on the Red Dragonflight sat stacked amongst the plates of food Tong had heaped at their table as if he intended to bury them beneath the weight of his banquet. Skewers of grilled chicken glistening with a spicy-sweet peanut sauce and slices of lime, delicate spindles of pale needle mushrooms that had been wok-fried in sesame oil, coils of shrimp sprinkled with grains of spicy black pepper, thick tendrils of boiled purple octopus with soy dipping sauce, and bowls of yak cheese curds were but some of the dishes he had prepared. A mountain of steamed buns filled with lotus root paste were stacked in a well-guarded spot near Anduin’s elbow. The priest had reached for one in between just about every course and spent most of the meal listening to the conversation with his mouth full while he chewed.

“As I was saying, though the trail went cold on evidence that the Red Dragonflight still hoards black dragon eggs, our most recent information involves rumors of experiments on members of the Twilight Dragonflight,” Right continued, jabbing her chopsticks at the last page she had brought to the forefront of the packet. “Grim Batol appears to be tightly sealed off and under...not insignificant guard by the Red Flight. We would need a considerable amount of preparation to investigate further, so we took measurements and made a map of the perimeter and abandoned that thread.”

“Not quite the discovery I had hoped for, but I suppose it’s always better to live with knowledge than without,” Wrathion mused, fetching the map and scanning it as he stroked his beard. “And you had no further sightings on your way south to this continent?”

Right shook her head, reaching for her beer, and Left said: “That’s correct, Sir.”

With a heavy sigh that sent a small cloud of smoke into the air and caused the candles in the center of the table to flicker, Wrathion set the map down beside his plate 

“Neither did we.” The dragon stole a glance at Nyx, who was tucked on top of a cushion between himself and Anduin. The young whelp was gnawing at a slice of dripping, bloody tiger steak with her sharp mortal teeth. “It seems we’ve found the border that is just an ocean too far to be worth the return they would gain for their effort.”

Anduin gestured to a dish on the other side of the table, which Wrathion passed without much thought, still contemplating the map and working the tip of his beard into a worried point. Nyx’s eyes narrowed as she watched Anduin use the small wooden serving spoon to heap piles of colorful vegetables onto his plate.

“What are those?” she asked.

“Peppers, mushrooms, water chestnuts, broccoli, and sugar snap peas fried in coconut oil,” Anduin explained as he somehow managed to find a spot to set the bowl down. “Vegetables from the last harvest of the Valley of the Four Winds.”

Nyx stared hard as she watched Anduin take a slice of lime and squeeze the rind between his calloused fingers, drizzling the tangy juice across his plate. He made a small, pleased noise as he plucked a small bunch into his mouth and chewed.

“I want to try one.”

Anduin almost lost hold on the next slice of pepper he had perched between his unpracticed fingers. He quirked a brow at her, then smiled and used his chopsticks to nudge a large sprig of broccoli onto her plate next to the remnants of the steak. Wrathion caught Anduin’s gaze and the priest laughed at the stunned expression he found.

“Try not to worry,” Anduin suggested, reaching behind Nyx’s head to clasp Wrathion’s shoulder, his Light-kissed fingers finding their way to a knot of muscle. “These matters will seem more surmountable in the morning light over tea and coffee.”

The tension released from Wrathion’s face as he reached over to take Anduin’s chin in a tender gesture between his warm fingers. “Not to mention frozen mango slices, I suppose.”

Right was the first to abandon her place at the table, her fiddle case accompanying her as she strode over to negotiate with a group of pandaren musicians. The members of the band were good friends with Tong and often took advantage of his perpetual discount for winter lodgings and unlimited supply of beer in exchange for the occasional show. After a dessert of fried pomfruit slices and crushed ice drizzled in sweet syrup with crystalized ginger, the tables were pushed back to make space in the hall. Right practiced until her Westfall-trained fingers found a rhythm that was suitable for the pandaren’s string instruments, flutes, and drums. Tong worked the bar to fuel the guests dancing as they formed rows and squares along the wooden floor.

Anduin took his cane and settled into a spot on a cushioned bench next to the large, iron-belly stove, drumming his fingers across his thigh along to the music as he nursed a fresh, tall mug of beer. Wrathion offered his palm to Nyx and hoisted her onto his hip, clasping her small hand as she clung to his shoulder with the other. Her quiet voice gave in to delighted shrieks as he spun and darted up and down the lines, spinning her so fast that her curls flew outward and smoke and hot yellow-orange sparks from both their mouths cycloned around them. When she demanded release, he pressed his lips to her brow before setting her down and she darted off to the edges of the dance floor towards a cluster of bouncing pandaren children.

Left tapped Wrathion’s shoulder and he smirked, welcoming her with a flourish and a bow. They danced up and down the lines, their boots clicking on the polished floorboards and the ends of Wrathion’s crimson sash flicking against his knees as they whirled. When Wrathion caught Anduin’s admiring eye, he found Nyx had crawled into his lap and fallen asleep with her cheek pressed to the star ruby pendant hanging over his chest. The more the beer flowed, the more encouraged the musicians became and the more enthusiasm the Tavern’s guests showed in response. Wrathion felt as if a strange, almost enchanted energy were being generated by the mortals in the room, just as it had in Elwynn’s barn dances and Mulgore’s campfire circles, as if the night could last for as long as they wanted to. The dancing did come to an end, though, and Wrathion joined the small throng of Tavern guests who stayed behind to fix the tables and play mahjong while swapping stories over Tong’s last call for drinks. After planting a chaste kiss on Wrathion's cheek, Anduin retired early to put Nyx to bed in a room Tong allowed her to have all to herself. He cradled her heavy, sleep-laden form against his shoulder with one arm as he used the other to grip his cane supporting his uneven steps up the stairs.

After midnight, the dragon staggered upstairs, not caring to lighten his footsteps as he made his way to his room. Anduin’s blond hair glowed in the moonlight from where it rested on a pillow at one end of a round pandaren bed, the quilt pulled up to the human’s ears. Wrathion slipped off his tunic and pants, crawling into bed and sliding his slender limbs around his consort. His serene expression quickly turned to one of surprise as he let out a startled cry.

“ _Titans_ how is it that you’re unable to stay warm beneath so many blankets?” Wrathion complained, shifting his legs to pull Anduin’s foot between them. “It’s the dead of _winter_ , Anduin Wrynn, why have you gone to bed undressed?”

Anduin seemed not at all perturbed, rolling over in place and shifting closer to slip between the dragon’s arms and rest his head on the nape of the dragon’s warm neck, the silver rings pressing into his cheek. “Oh, hush, you’ll have the bed warmed soon enough. Besides, this is my preferred way to lay beside you.”

Wrathion’s cheeks burned as Anduin’s mouth met his. The priest tightened his grip with a fierce, almost immortal strength, as if there was no force on Azeroth that would make him let go.

* * *

The promise of spring warmed the coast of the Windward Isle with its early morning light. Frost-tipped grass glistened on the tall, rocky pillars that rose from the depths of the Mistveil Sea along with the long, thin branches of the barren rhododendron trees, just beginning to bubble with the first tight yellow signs of blossoms. Nyx stood in her mortal form at the edge of one such stone tower, crouched with her arms clasped around her knees, peering down at the cloud serpent nests far below.

Wrathion took in a deep breath of the fresh, salty breeze, closing his eyes for a moment as the wind pushed back his dark brown hair. “Anduin tells me that you wish to begin studying the naaru and the ways mortals worship the Light.”

Nyx turned her head, allowing the wind to hide most of her face behind her rich, springy curls. “Yes. I do.”

“I see,” Wrathion tucked his hands into his pockets, running the toe of his boot across the head of a small white flower withering in the cold grass. “Does this mean that you will cease your shaman training?”

Nyx’s heavy brows furrowed. She reached up to tuck as much of her hair as she could behind the shell of her small ear. “Why must I stop? Can I not do both?”

Wrathion’s tongue pressed into the roof of his mouth, taken back for a moment. “I suppose there’s no reason why not.”

“You’ll allow it?”

Wrathion paused his restless, meandering walk at the foot of a small pile of stones that could not have happened into their placement on accident. It was a kind of makeshift shrine, left by some traveler that had reached the impossibly high stone cliff. 

“Yes, my dear.” He raised his red gaze towards where Nyx crouched, framed by the rising light of the dawn. “I trust Anduin to teach you.”

A sincere smile spread across Nyx’s face and Wrathion felt a kind of peace settle over him. 

“Enough stalling.” Wrathion flicked his wrist into the air, golden bracelets glinting as they caught the edges of the sunrise. He met her pleased expression with his own smirk. “Are you ready?”

Nyx leapt to her feet, a shimmer rising from her narrow shoulders. “Yes, _Atya_.”

Before he could utter a single word of encouragement from the meticulous speech he had crafted the night before, Nyx whipped around to face the wind and took off running towards the edge of the cliff. She flung herself into the open air off the side and Wrathion only caught a glimpse of her scaled, orange wings unfurling as she fell. Ebony scales rippled across Wrathion’s mortal skin as he too shifted into his true form and took off after her.

Nyx’s small body was buffeted by the strong wind but she steadied herself as she plummeted and a pang of satisfied pride bloomed in Wrathion’s chest when he saw the gale pick her up beneath the canopy of her steady wings. Crimson and sapphire cloud serpents hissed at them from below as they glided above the jade nests. Wrathion followed at a lazy pace as Nyx beat her wings and took off across the glistening surface of the ocean. She held herself steady over the waves, stable as she maintained balance, her wings stronger than they had been each successive day before.

They looped around the perimeter of the isles, maintaining a respectful distance from the wary cloud serpents who seemed determined to go about their day with minimal friction from the two visiting earth dragons. With the adrenaline from the initial plummet absent from her veins, Nyx relaxed into the wind and allowed it to take her rather than fight it as she wove in and out of the white stone cliffs. Wrathion descended far enough let his claws dip into the ocean as he flew, dragging a sharp spray behind him that glittered pink and gold in the cold morning light.

The budding canopy of the Jade Forest greeted them along with the earliest risers of the pandaren serpent riders. At the edge of the farm, near a stone shrine adorned with crimson prayer banners and brass cups of incense, Wrathion’s keen eyes spotted an achingly familiar mortal form slouched over the railing at the edge of the cliff adorned with garlands of paper kites, tilting his face into the warm sunrise. From a distance, Anduin almost glowed as if he were calling upon the naaru’s ethereal Light, relaxed and calm as he took in the fresh, misty sea air. His long blond hair whipped in the wind, the strands illuminated like a halo. His gentle, gray-blue eyes opened to meet Wrathion’s draconic gaze, a warm smile spreading across his face as he raised his hand in a lazy greeting. 

Nyx attempted to show off with a loop and a puff of flame that almost knocked her out of the air. She recovered, wings frantically scrambling, and dove towards the beach below to recover from her embarrassment. Wrathion executed a more elegant version of the same feat, the membrane of his wings casting luminous orange shapes across the cliff face as he turned. He heard Anduin call to him, the words themselves torn up by the breeze but the jumbled sound of them a kind of blessing. Under the keen eye of his reverent consort, the Earth-Warder rose into the crisp blue sky, towards the drifting white wisps of clouds, the first of his legacy not far behind.

* * *

_Some centuries later…_

With the crackling of red gravel, Magni Bronzebeard’s worn, steel-toed boots came to rest at the edge of the Redridge Mountains, where the trail emerged onto an overlook that peered down upon the plains of the Burning Steppes. His crystal body was adorned in scuffed leathers, a threadbare cloak thrown over his broad shoulders. A wide-brimmed hat sat atop his head, casting a shadow across his buffeted, scratched face. His tired crystalline eyes held a weary, curious expression as he leaned on his sturdy, wooden walking staff and took in the sight of the plains below. A young forest blossomed across the land, budding green and bountiful with its hardy evergreen trees and sturdy grass. Red and orange poppy flowers peppered the nearest field where herds of cattle grazed. At the edge, near tangles of prickerbrush, Magni squinted to see if he could discern what seemed to be some kind of wild rosebush with creamy white blossoms, the kind he used to see only in certain wealthy human gardens when he was younger.

“ **You there, traveler. A moment.** ”

Magni turned to find a dragon the size of the average adult horse had landed on a nearby ledge, just high enough so that the drake was looking down on the dwarf as he spoke. His raven scales glistened at the edges with an opalescent shine and his blood-orange wings cast a copper shadow across Magni’s body before he folded them by his sides. The charcoal talons that gripped at the mountain stone could have easily cracked any of the crystal dwarf’s limbs.

The former king of Khaz Modan tipped his hat, revealing a long, deep crack that ran from the tip of his skull to just behind his ear, and gave his best attempt at a polite nod with his stiff, crackling neck. Strands of crystal hair, finer than spider's silk, fluttered through the air and landed at his boots where they were swallowed by the red dust that coated the ground.

“I’m sorry for the intrusion,” he said, straightening his cracking back and folding both hands over his walking staff. “It’s been quite some time since I’ve seen this place and my memory isn’t what it used to be. Tell me, laddie, is that peak over there Blackrock Mountain?”

The dwarf pointed to the north-west, where a tall mountain covered in streaks of dark green wildlife sat surrounded by gentle pools of warm lava. Plumes of white smoke drifted from the mouth of the mountain’s peak spread into the eggshell-blue sky and Magni swore he could see the dark shapes of at least two dozen more winged dragons flitting about the cliffside. The nearby drake’s eyes glistened with a white Holy light, revealing a rune emblazoned at the base of his ridged brow. The familiar rune’s appearance sent a transcendental shudder through Magni’s hardened bones

“ **It is, indeed, crystal dwarf,** ” the drake said as smoke curled from between his sharp, glistening fangs. “ **The fiery mountain, in fact all the land that you see before you as far as the horizon can behold, is the home of the Black Dragonflight and the heart of their domain.** ”

The End

“I offer you the earth. The soil, the ground, the deep places. But know that the earth is the basis of all things. It is where we are rooted. Here is whence true strength comes. From deep places...within the world, and within oneself.”

\-- Khaz'goroth's blessing of the Black Aspect


End file.
